On August 23rd, the Procurement Success Summit (PSS) was successfully held in Beijing. As the most influential procurement event in the Asia-Pacific region and the bellwether of Asia Procurement, over 200 procurement leaders gathered to explore the latest trends, strategies, and best practices across various industries. Liu Yang, CTO of ZKH, was invited to speak on “AI, Big Data and Intelligent Upgrading of Industrial Supplies Procurement,” where he shared ZKH's insights and practices on applying AI to the industrial supplies supply chain.

Deconstruct to Reconstruct: Tailoring AI Solutions by In-depth Scenario Analysis

As a premier digital industrial supplies service platform, ZKH is committed to harnessing AI technologies to address challenges in industrial supplies procurement. Liu Yang highlighted a key methodology for AI-enabled intelligent upgrades: deconstruction and reconstruction. Every company has its own "industry chain" within the organisation, from production to sales. This chain can be fully deconstructed and thoroughly analyzed to identify which parts are best suited for AI application and which parts may offer a lower input-output ratio for AI utilization. Liu Yang stressed that understanding each scenario thoroughly allows companies to pinpoint opportunities for AI implementation and refine their processes.

To date, ZKH has segmented the industrial supplies procurement process into 16 scenarios and 120 sub-scenarios, including market research and analysis, product design and development, material requirements planning, supplier selection and evaluation, material procurement, transportation and delivery, warehouse management and more.

ZKH CTO Liu Yang is introducing AI-driven solutions

Addressing Three Key Pain Points in Industrial Supplies Procurement with AI-Driven Solutions

Drawing on the extensive experience with over 100,000 industrial companies, ZKH has identified and summarized three major pain points of industrial supplies procurement: High material complexity, High cost of price comparison, and High difficulty in product selection. In response to these challenges, ZKH's AI-drivien solutions are developed to provide customers with generative and growth-oriented intelligent supply chain capabilities.

ZKH's AI-driven solutions not only aim to solve the current procurement challenges, but also focuses on building a generative digital system. This system integrates data, models, and applications to continually enhance decision-making capabilities. The ongoing accumulation of big data and optimization of AI models contribute to a virtuous cycle, improving the system's effectiveness and feedback into the original IT business system.

The hallmark of an intelligent supply chain system is its dynamism and growth. Unlike traditional, static ERP systems, ZKH's digital system evolves and becomes smarter daily. As AI technology progresses, ZKH will continue to innovate and support more companies in achieving digital and intelligent procurement management.

Stay tuned for more updates and deep dives in AI and procurement with ZKH.

ZKHer at Procurement Success Summit

About ZKH

ZKH is a digital industrial service platform as well as a product company, providing customers with a one-stop solution of industrial products procurement and management, realizing transparency, efficiency and cost-reduction of industrial supply chain. ZKH provides a wide range of Spare Parts, General Consumables, Office Supplies, Manufacturing Assembly, Chemicals, including 32 dominant product lines with SKUs exceeding 17 million.