Pros to Know: New Horizon Soft's Chao-Ming Ying Talks AI's Role in Future-Proofing Supply Chains

As co-founder and chief technology officer, Dr. Chao-Ming Ying drives the long-term product vision and development for New Horizon Soft’s suite of AI-powered supply chain software applications. He works with strategic customers to assist in taking advantage of the latest supply chain best practices, with process re-engineering and software implementation projects at over 100 companies worldwide. Ying’s background lies in managing supply chain software implementations rather than software development, which may be more typical for a CTO. After holding product management positions at i2 (Panasonic/Blue Yonder) and Demantra early in his career, he joined the Oracle implementation partner ecosystem after Oracle acquired Demantra in 2006. He eventually rose to lead the global Oracle Supply Chain Planning practice for Hitachi Consulting, where he gained a a unique perspective on supply chain best practices.

Over the past 12 months, Ying oversaw the addition of new industry functionality to New Horizon’s suite of supply chain products, which has allowed the company to win deals and complete software implementations in new industries, such as retail, consumer electronics, chemicals, and building materials and construction products. Ying also drove the productization of a new functionality originally deployed for a $10 billion-plus quick-service restaurant chain. This functionality allows operators of high-velocity distribution centers (DCs) to optimize procurement scheduling to take into account DC receiving capacity. The result is fewer receiving bottlenecks, higher labor utilization, and lower planning and logistics costs. Ying and his team also launched new AI technology, designed to automate analysis and allow supply chain users to make better decisions to improve forecast accuracy and service levels while minimizing inventory and costs. This new solution also automatically alerts users to problems with data quality and potential supply chain problems.

In the next 12 months, Ying plans to add new AI-based capabilities across the company's supply chain suite in advanced areas such as truckload optimization, dynamic adjustment of supplier lead times based on historic performance, and forward buying optimization. He also plans to add new product capabilities to address additional industries and to expand globally, improving existing support for things features such as local languages and currencies, workflows across multiple time zones, and additional functionality to accommodate regional nuances in business practices.

We talked exclusively with Ying about managing supply chain software implementation, promoting cross-functionality across teams and AI's role in the future of supply chain.

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