supply chain changes. Our role is to help Toyota build capabilities it can operate and continuously improve,” says Clay. Working across Toyota’ s ecosystem of technology partners, IBM is helping integrate cloud, data and AI capabilities into practical supply chain workflows— connecting supply, demand, logistics and dealer-facing visibility in ways that support faster, better decisions.
“ For us, it’ s stitching together the technology components to deliver outcomes for the business,” says Clay.
He adds:“ Making sure we’ re collaborating and integrating across Toyota partners to deliver that outcome for the business, so that there’ s a better experience for the end customers, dealers and employees.”
Together, we have helped give Toyota much better visibility into data across the supply chain. It was historically difficult to understand the timing of when a vehicle would land at a dealer because of the many handoffs through logistics”.
A visibility platform, effectively a control tower, now shows where vehicles are in the process, from manufacturing through delivery to the end customer. When supply disruptions hit the market, those ETAs become extremely important for dealers and customers.”
A partnership built on co-creation
Looking to the future of IBM and its journey with Toyota, Clay reflects that“ the partnership with Toyota has been fantastic. For us, this is about co-creating with Toyota. We’ re working with the digital innovations team and the supply chain business to deliver business outcomes.”
“ The opportunity now is to take the lessons from this programme— the data foundation, the operating model and the co-creation approach— and apply them across other areas of the business where better visibility and faster decision-making can create value.”