IBM Sterling Fulfillment Optimizer

Take advantage of cognitive intelligence to minimize total cost-to-serve

IBM Sterling Fulfillment Optimizer with Watson is a cognitive analytic engine that enhances existing order management systems. It provides a “big data brain” to order management and inventory visibility systems that are already in place with retailers who have eCommerce fulfillment capability.

With Fulfillment Optimizer, retailers are better able to understand and act on changes in the market as they occur – to perfectly balance protecting margins, utilizing store capacity and meeting delivery expectations. These sourcing decisions can dramatically increase profits, especially during peak periods.

Read the solution brief (814 KB)

What you get

Increase profitability

Easily execute optimized omnichannel fulfillment plans at the lowest cost-to-serve.

Understand the big picture

Know the impact of omnichannel decisions across eCommerce, merchandising, logistics, store operations and supply chain.

Solve cost-to-serve challenges

Intelligently balance omnichannel fulfillment costs against service to protect margins, utilize store capacity and meet customer delivery expectations.

Gain real-time sourcing flexibility

Make better use of ‘”at risk” and returned inventory.

Leverage stores to maximize capacity

Expand your ability to meet order fulfillment demands for how, when and where customers receive orders during peak periods. Scale existing fulfillment capacity to accommodate more customer demand.

Ensure improved performance

Prove out fulfillment scenarios prior to go-live.

Feature details

Enhance your current order management solution

IBM Sterling Fulfillment Optimizer with Watson is designed to integrate with your order management solution, making it easy to apply advanced analytics and real-time optimization to your existing capabilities. It is a proven order management platform that provides intelligent fulfillment capabilities – along with real-time order promising and inventory visibility. It easily uses multiple data points to execute optimized fulfillment plans at the lowest cost to serve.

Gain greater clarity on business results

Fulfillment Optimizer helps you understand and evaluate factors impacting fulfillment performance down to the individual SKU and node level. It can identify and continuously monitor patterns and trends across both normal and peak business periods. It gives you the ability to use inventory at its most profitable price point – prioritizing slow moving or obsolete store inventory to support eCommerce demand while improving inventory sell-through.

Use real-time order sourcing and optimization

Execute new sourcing decisions in real-time to minimize shipping costs. Fulfillment Optimizer allows you to balance across different business priorities based on time of year (peak, non-peak) while reducing cost-to-serve. You’re able to use cognitive capabilities to continuously learn and improve outcomes for omnichannel fulfillment.

Take advantage of multi-objective optimization

With Fulfillment Optimizer you can optimize transportation costs and service level agreements when selecting the sourcing node. It also provides intelligent weight allocation and intelligent upgrade and downgrade to optimize customer satisfaction and lower costs. Other features include: automatic order splitting to reduce costs, the ability to optimize delivery dates and order processing labor rates as part of the calculation to present a full cost picture.