UCLA Anderson, Review, Research Brief, Supply Chains Benefit When Manufacturers Adopt AI, August 6, 2025
Artificial intelligence promises to streamline logistics and transform manufacturers’ ability to predict demand, manage inventory and track orders. Yet, even as companies cautiously experiment with the latest AI tools, evidence supporting these promises can be hard to find. A study attempts to fill that gap.
A working paper suggests that companies committed to deploying AI systems gain significant operational benefits from the technology. What’s more interesting, those operational benefits spill over to their suppliers, even if the suppliers don’t deploy AI tools themselves.
The efficiency gains seen by suppliers result directly from AI’s ability to help manufacturers improve demand forecasts, schedule production and manage unforeseen events, according to the study by Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Shucheng Miao, a Ph.D. student, UCLA Anderson’s Christopher Tang, Hong Kong Polytechnic’s Andy C. L. Yeung and Edwin T. C. Chang, and Oxford’s Benn Lawson. For suppliers, this means fewer inventory shortages or overages and less scrambling to fill last-minute orders.