Supermarket chain Carrefour is exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to optimise its inventory management and reduce waste.

Part of the “Carrefour 2022″ transformation plan, the supermarket has allotted a €2 billion annual investment budget primarily for IT and digital technology projects.

A promising new technology is AI, according to Franck Noël-Fontana, forecast director at Carrefour France.

“By freeing up time for teams, artificial intelligence will allow them to focus on developing differentiated forecasting strategies and better meeting customer expectations while reducing waste,” he said.

Carrefour is using Viya, an AI solution developed by SAS. After an 18-month trial, the platform will collect and process the data from stores, warehouses and e-commerce websites to better predict demand and refine supplier orders.

More intelligent supply chain management will reduce stock outages and prevent overstocking in stores and warehouses.

Carrefour said that AI creates new occupations for employees such as data scientists for data processing and demand planners for business expertise.

“Beyond the operational benefits of a fluid and efficient supply chain, this project will also improve the Carrefour customer experience,” said Boualem Alouache, retail director SAS France.

“Based on artificial intelligence and machine learning, this Big Data project will optimise each step in the supply chain and increase customer satisfaction. We are proud to be driving the success of this project, with Capgemini’s support at the integration phase.”

This story first appeared on our sister site, Inside FMCG.