In our recent arti­cle on SAP Leonar­do, we dis­cussed how the twin dis­ci­plines of machine learn­ing (ML) and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) are becom­ing real con­trib­u­tors with­in today’s IT sys­tems. As they’re inte­grat­ed with more enter­prise resource plan­ning (ERP) sys­tems, these tech­nolo­gies are also start­ing to con­tribute to the bot­tom line of the business.

Adi­das, Run­ning Faster

We don’t have to look too far to find exam­ples of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence or machine learn­ing in enter­pris­es now build­ing out dig­i­tal­ly enabled sup­ply chains and oper­a­tional work­flows. SAP invit­ed sports man­u­fac­tur­ing giant Addi­das on stage dur­ing the SAP­PHIRE NOW and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence in June 2018 to illus­trate the work­ings of its pro­to­type ​“speed fac­to­ry” in Atlanta, Georgia.

This new inno­va­tion uses machine learn­ing to deliv­er per­son­al­ized shoes. It elim­i­nates the wait time nor­mal­ly need­ed for Adi­das to turn trends into shoes across a typ­i­cal 18-month time frame. Instead, con­sumers design their own cus­tomized look in the pro­to­type store/​factory and the prod­uct is shipped to them with­in 24 hours.