ARMONK, N.Y., June 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the National Association of Manufacturers, the largest manufacturing association in the U.S., has bestowed IBM's Supply Chain organization with five Manufacturing Leadership 100 Awards at the 2019 Manufacturing Leadership Summit. The accolades recognize IBM's global supply chain transformation using disruptive technologies including AI, blockchain, and IoT to deliver a competitive advantage with improved end-to-end supply chain security.

The winning nominations demonstrate IBM's ability to transform data into actionable insights, gaining efficiencies managing the overall value chain to maximize customer value, while embracing new design and production approaches to drive innovative process improvements. IBM's Supply Chain organization won awards in the following categories:

• Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics Leadership – IBM's Supply Chain organization developed an augmented intelligence solution to help its supply chain workforce make better decisions by quickly understanding potential disruptions, while advising on expected impacts and optimal corrective actions. The solution currently covers Inventory, Demand and Supply Planning, Supply Assurance, Logistics, Order Management, and Manufacturing domains that can retrieve data from both internally and externally for IBM. This delivered unprecedented levels of transparency via data integration and visualization, which has achieved 3x ROI with current projections for 2019.
• Supply Chain Leadership – IBM focused on increasing product lifecycle traceability by infusing blockchain into its complex global supply chain, while also achieving improvements on cost avoidance for parts provenance. By equipping each inbound and outbound shipment asset with an IoT enabled tracking device to provide near-real-time visibility of assets, IBM's supply chain can predict each asset's behavior to reduce the risk or loss or damage liability.
• Engineering and Production Technology Leadership – IBM Systems Hardware Design for Excellence Process received a "High Achiever" category-winning award for the significant and sustained contributions with 4x ROI annually. By dramatically improving the efficiency of hardware design review process IBM minimized costly design revisions, shortened new product introduction (NPI) times, and delivers the highest quality products to clients.
• Visionary Leadership – IBM's VP of Supply Chain, Ron Castro, received the highly distinguished accolade awarded to leaders who through their ideas, values, and achievements transformed their organizations and made important contributions to their industries by challenging assumptions, while achieving results and empowering others.
• Manufacturing Leader of the Year – This independently judged program category comprised of a distinguished panel of expert judges honored IBM's Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, Ron Castro, for this top distinction. It recognizes his successful, holistic efforts to drive adoption of Manufacturing 4.0 technologies across IBM and its supplier ecosystem, and building the world's first cognitive supply chain.

"Congratulations to all of the 2019 Manufacturing Leadership Awards winners," said Manufacturing Leadership Council Co-Founder, Vice President and Executive Director David R. Brousell. "By embracing new technologies and bold ideas, these teams and individual leaders are redefining the meaning of manufacturing excellence and demonstrating the transformative power of Manufacturing 4.0."

"The transformation underway in the Industry 4.0 era is exposing the essential need to master the digital supply chain, which is powered by AI, blockchain, and IoT technologies to help enterprises increase their competitiveness and improve the customer experience," added Ron Castro, VP of Supply Chain, IBM. "The augmentative capabilities of these technologies not only improve productivity for the supply chain workforce, but increase trust and transparency in supplier networks to elevate the critical role supply chains play in today's businesses."

About the Manufacturing Leadership 100 Awards
The Manufacturing Leadership Awards have acknowledged the leadership of global manufacturing companies for 15 years. Winning projects and individual manufacturing leaders have demonstrated achievement in one of a wide range of categories, and are chosen by a panel of expert judges for results that have delivered clear and compelling value, return on investment, and other tangible outcomes.

About IBM Watson Supply Chain
A world leader in AI software, services and technology for business, IBM has deployed Watson solutions in thousands of engagements with clients across 20 industries and 80 countries. IBM Watson Supply Chain enables forward thinking supply chain business professionals to improve business outcomes by providing AI-powered insights, B2B collaboration and orchestration that mitigates operational impact and business risk. For more information visit: https://www.ibm.com/supply-chain

Contacts:

Erik Mason
External Communications – IBM Watson Customer Engagement
erik.mason@ibm.com 
508-208-6617

SOURCE IBM