How natural language

processing (NLP)
can be used to build
supply chain resiliency
 CONTENTS

Why existing supply chain strategies

3 fall short during a crisis

Understanding natural language

4 processing

How supply chain organizations

6 can benefit from the use of NLP

Case study: how the EY team

7 helped deploy NLP

2 How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency
Why existing supply chain
strategies fall short during a crisis
Supply chain organizations are getting smarter in using internal data to optimize
their networks, improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs. However,
with the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, it is clear that most supply chain
organizations are not yet resilient enough.
Supply chains came across unprecedented challenges Since most supply chain organizations use internal
such as shortages of raw materials, unplanned data to track their demand-supply balances, they were
operational shutdowns, labor shortages, delays in not able to foresee the external events that impacted
transportation, and a sudden rise or fall in demand. supply chains. The challenges related to COVID-19
This caused major supply chain disruptions, which forced supply chains to react to the situation instead
had a cascading effect. Products such as toilet paper, of being proactive. Most organizations took too long
bread makers and home exercise equipment saw a to recover from this shock, which impacted their
sudden spike in demand, in some cases by as much as operations and bottom line.
600%. This resulted in temporary shortages for these Supply chain organizations must look beyond their
products. At the same time, the demand for gasoline current landscape and use digital capabilities to build
plunged due to a mix of geopolitical factors and resiliency to handle challenges around crises like the
COVID‑19‑related stay-at-home orders enacted around COVID-19 pandemic. Natural language processing is
the world. The shock to oil and gas supply chains one of the emerging artificial intelligence applications
was both unforeseen and immediate. that can help build supply chain resiliency.

“
Since most supply chain organizations use internal data to
track their demand-supply balances, they were not able to
foresee the external events that impacted supply chains.

How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency 3
Understanding natural language
processing
Natural language processing is a type of artificial intelligence technology, and it’s a component
of text analytics. It focuses on understanding unstructured human language and transforming
voice or text communications into normalized, structured data suitable for analysis.
NLP has a wide range of applications, and below are Siri and Alexa recognize and interpret human voice
some familiar examples from our daily lives: commands. Similarly, voice-to-text messaging interprets
the human voice and converts it to text. Amazon, on the
other hand, uses algorithms to “scrape” a user’s purchase
FAMILIAR APPLICATIONS OF NLP
history, along with items the user has liked and rated to
1 Voice recognition via virtual assistants, make product recommendations. These are all applications
such as Siri and Alexa of NLP.
2 Voice-to-text messaging Web scraping means extracting web content to track
events and data that can have potential impact on
3 Amazon product recommendations business operations.

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING WEB SCRAPING

Extracting web content from online sources

XLS CSV

SQL XML
Natural language processing focuses on understanding unstructured
human language and transforming voice or text communications Website pages, Web scraping/ Structured
into normalized, structured data suitable for analysis. unstructured data data extraction data

4 How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency
“
One example of web scraping is tracking the news for hurricanes,
tornadoes and storms to assess the impact of these weather
events on business operations. This helps businesses to take
proactive measures before the actual event.

One example of web scraping is tracking the news for key words or phrases in social media posts, and an
hurricanes, tornadoes and storms to assess the impact algorithm is used to analyze the data.
of these weather events on business operations. This One example of social media listening is when
helps businesses to take proactive measures before the marketing companies track social media conversations
actual event. regarding their brand. This helps them to understand
Other applications such as social media listening can why, where and how these conversations are
provide valuable insights on analyzing data to gain happening, and what people think about their brand.
business intelligence. Social media listening and web scraping can provide
Social media listening means tracking mentions and valuable insights that help businesses to be proactive
conversations on social media platforms such as Twitter and adjust their strategy.
and Facebook. Software is used to monitor certain

SOCIAL MEDIA LISTENING

“
Social media listening and web
scraping can provide valuable insights
that help businesses to be proactive
and adjust their strategy.
Key words or phrases Data is collected
1 2
are monitored on and analyzed by
social media posts. an algorithm

How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency 5
How supply chain organizations
can benefit from the use of NLP
Supply chain organizations can gain many benefits from the use of NLP.
Some examples of use cases of NLP are listed below:
strikes or riots, and weather events that can impact
USE CASES OF NLP operations of suppliers and may result in supply risk.
Further analytics can be built on this data to create early
1 Automate manual processes: NLP can be
warning indicators. With these valuable insights, supply
used to read thousands of shipment documents
chain organizations can take proactive measures to rely
to provide valuable summary information for
making targeted logistics improvements. more on alternate suppliers for risk mitigation. This can
be helpful in crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic,
2 Monitor data changes: NLP algorithms can track when some suppliers went out of business while others
real-time changes in internal data, which can help
had to shut down operations due to governmental
in accurately maintaining master data.
restrictions.

“
3 Gather industry benchmarks: Web scraping can
be used to gather industry benchmark data for
In addition to assessing
transportation rates, fuel prices and labor costs. supply risk, NLP also can
This data helps organizations to benchmark their be used to evaluate the Supply chain organizations
performance against industry standards and impact of external events on
identify cost-saving opportunities. manufacturing operations and can use NLP for building
4 Reduce language barriers: Most organizations logistics. During the COVID-19 resiliency to handle crisis
have global operations, and language barriers crisis, certain states noticed
can hinder process efficiency. NLP can be used a spike in the number of situations such as the
to translate documents from one language to infections, leading them to COVID-19 outbreak.
another to reduce regional language barriers. take measures such as closure
Conduct compliance tracking: NLP can help of retail establishments and
5
verify compliance with ethical practices by stay‑at‑home orders, which had a cascading effect
web scraping publicly available information for on other supply chains. The COVID-19 pandemic also
potential breaches by suppliers. impacted logistics operations due to a shortage of
trucks for shipments and shipping port congestion,
resulting in delayed shipments. NLP can be used in
In addition to the above benefits, supply chain these situations to track news about COVID-19 cases
organizations can use NLP for building resiliency and local government restrictions where an organization
to handle crisis situations such as the COVID-19 has operations. These data points can provide insights
outbreak. The benefits of NLP can be realized in into potential future disruptions to operations. Similarly,
end‑to‑end supply chain processes, from supply side NLP can be used to scrape data from logistics carriers’
to logistics side. websites and shipping port websites to assess the impact
of a crisis and inform measures such as increasing
Web scraping can be used to track critical external
safety stock inventory levels, using alternate modes of
information related to key suppliers. Tracking a
shipment and finding different routes to ship products.
supplier’s stock market performance and assessing its
financial statements can provide data on the supplier’s NLP enables supply chain organizations to gather
financial stability. Furthermore, web scraping and and monitor external data that can cause potential
social media listening can provide other useful supplier disruptions. Supply chains can mitigate risk by
data points in areas such as labor relations, regional taking preventive measures and build resiliency to
governmental restrictions, local news regarding handle crises.

6 How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency
Case study: how the EY team
helped deploy NLP
We deployed NLP at a Fortune 50 global manufacturing client to help protect
its supply chain during the COVID-19 crisis.
The project team primarily used NLP for internet understanding of current business conditions, and to
news, social media and document searches to identify plan accordingly.
and interpret content that could have an impact on The EY team helped position the client for future
the client’s business. We applied this technique to opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, including
understand what journalists are reporting and what the following:
users are saying at the web-scale level.
For social media content, we focused on analyzing
tweets from Twitter. We identified and categorized BENEFITS OF DEPLOYING NLP
tweets using an application programming interface Ability to have targeted conversations with
1
that allowed us to see what vendors were officially suppliers to provide continuity of supply
saying, their employees’ sentiments, updates
2 Insight-driven data to build further analytics to
regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, news on relevant
forecast demand and supply
material production in the local facilities, regional
government restrictions and the general sentiment 3 Review of real-time data for shipping port
of the community in the client’s geographic area. congestion to make necessary changes to
priority shipments
This equipped our client to have more targeted
conversations with its vendors with a fuller

How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency 7
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8 How natural language processing (NLP) can be used to build supply chain resiliency