Material planning sits at the heart of every supply chain — determining whether the right materials reach the right places at the right time. Yet in most enterprises, this critical process is still dominated by manual processes, fragmented data, and constant firefighting. Planners spend their days chasing supplier updates, reconciling data, and managing disruptions that could have been anticipated sooner. The result is a process that’s essential but exhausting — vital for operational success, yet rarely strategic in its execution.

As global supply networks grow more complex, dynamic, and interdependent, the traditional methods of planning simply can’t keep pace. Supply disruptions, fluctuating demand, and compliance pressures now occur in real time — demanding decisions that do, too. That’s where AI-powered decision intelligence changes the equation. By bringing automation, predictive insight, and real-time orchestration together, Aera’s Digital Material Planner Skill transforms material planning from an administrative burden into a source of resilience, efficiency, and competitive advantage.

Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short

For most planning teams, the day begins reactively — chasing supplier updates, resolving exceptions, and piecing together data from multiple systems. Traditional material requirements planning (MRP) tools can determine what materials are needed, in what quantities, and when — but they fall short in showing how to anticipate disruptions, balance trade-offs, and act decisively across complex networks.

This strain on planners isn’t driven by occasional challenges — it’s fueled by systemic forces that are only intensifying. Several converging trends are pushing material planning beyond the limits of manual processes and traditional MRP logic:

• Network fragmentation is increasing, adding handoffs, intermediaries, and failure points across extended supplier ecosystems.
• Demand patterns are more volatile, shaped by shorter product lifecycles, customization, and rapid market shifts that outpace static planning cycles.
• Compliance obligations are expanding, as trade rules, environmental standards, and geopolitical restrictions introduce new constraints and variability.
• The risk landscape is escalating, with port closures, labor actions, geopolitical conflict, and extreme weather turning yesterday’s edge cases into today’s regular operating conditions.

Taken together, these trends overwhelm manual workflows and rule-based planning. The result is slower decisions, higher buffers, more expedites, and growing pressure on both margins and resilience — exactly the gaps decision intelligence is designed to close.

A Closed-Loop System for Smarter Material Planning

Decision intelligence redefines how you approach material planning. Instead of relying on static dashboards or disconnected workflows, it combines real-time data, AI models, and automation to create a living, adaptive decision cycle. It bridges the gap between insight and action by detecting emerging risks, analyzing their impact, recommending the best response, and executing those decisions. The result is continuous, proactive orchestration — not the episodic, reactive planning of traditional systems.

Aera, the decision intelligence agent, delivers this closed-loop approach through a series of interconnected stages:

1. Data foundation: Aera integrates information from ERP, procurement, and supplier systems to create a unified, real-time view of material demand, supply, and performance.
2. Risk detection: Aera continuously monitors key indicators — from supplier reliability to lead-time variability — identifying potential disruptions before they become crises.
3. Scenario evaluation: Aera runs AI- and machine learning–based simulations to test alternative responses and determine which options best balance cost, service, and risk.
4. Recommendation generation: Aera presents ranked recommendations, complete with impact analysis and trade-offs, helping you make faster, more confident decisions.
5. Action orchestration: Aera executes approved actions automatically — adjusting purchase orders, reallocating inventory, or rescheduling production — with full visibility and traceability.
6. Learning and optimization: Aera learns from every decision, applying those insights to refine future recommendations and continuously improve performance over time.

By linking intelligence to execution, Aera turns material planning into a dynamic, self-improving process — one that keeps your operations agile, informed, and always one step ahead of disruption.

Turning Complexity into Collaboration

Decision intelligence becomes tangible in the context of material planning through the Digital Material Planner Skill — where intelligence doesn’t just inform decisions; it orchestrates them. Leveraging this skill, Aera coordinates a network of specialized AI agents that operate like a cross-functional team, each focusing on a specific task while sharing context in real time.

• Demand Sensing Agent monitors forecasts and production schedules to spot shifts as they happen.
• BOM Intelligence Agent converts those shifts into precise component requirements by part, quantity, and timing.
• Contract Intelligence Agent surfaces the terms that matter — pricing, lead times, and payment conditions — so plans reflect commercial reality.
• Supplier Performance Agent evaluates reliability, quality, and responsiveness continuously, not just quarterly.
• Communication Agent reads unstructured supplier messages and notifications, flagging early signals like “temporary constraints” or “capacity adjustments.”

Crucially, these agents work concurrently, not in a linear hand-off. A demand spike can instantly trigger capacity checks, contract lookups, and risk scans — without human coordination. The skill synthesizes all inputs into ranked, justification-rich recommendations, executes approved actions directly in your systems, and tracks outcomes with full auditability. Each cycle feeds learning back into the models, so recommendations become faster, sharper, and better aligned with your objectives over time.

Driving Measurable Gains Across the Enterprise

When this closed-loop approach is applied at scale, the impact is material and measurable. To ground the numbers: for a company with $10B in annual revenue and roughly $2B in inventory value (20% of cost of goods sold), optimizing material planning with decision intelligence can unlock up to $200M in working capital — not through blanket cuts, but by lifting availability while reducing safety stock. By implementing Aera with the Digital Material Planner Skill, such a company can:

• Improve financial performance by lowering excess inventory and carrying costs while maintaining (and often improving) material availability — strengthening liquidity and funding growth without sacrificing service.
• Achieve operational excellence by automating exception handling, supplier updates, and contract analysis (in seconds rather than hours) and reducing manual planning work by up to 90% — shifting time to continuous improvement and supplier collaboration.
• Enhance strategic capability by preventing up to 90% of potential disruptions before they affect production schedules — modeling mitigation paths that balance cost, service, and coverage simultaneously.
• Create competitive differentiation through faster market response, improved on-time delivery, and stronger supplier partnerships grounded in proactive planning rather than crisis management.

These gains don’t just lower cost — they increase resilience and agility, turning material planning into a durable source of advantage.

Empowering Every Role with Intelligence

Building on these gains, decision intelligence reshapes how people work day to day. By taking on complexity and routine analysis, Aera frees planners, leaders, and finance teams to focus on the decisions that drive growth and resilience. It doesn’t just optimize systems — it empowers the people behind them, surfacing real-time insights that enable smarter, faster action across every level of the organization:

• Material planners can focus on strategy instead of spreadsheets. Automated exception handling, supplier changes, and performance monitoring free up time for network optimization and collaboration.
• Supply chain directors gain real-time visibility across the supplier ecosystem. They can predict issues before they occur, align operations with strategy, and drive proactive decision-making across teams.
• CFOs can release trapped working capital and improve predictability. Earlier risk detection and automated planning reduce unplanned costs and improve the return on assets.

Across roles, decision intelligence shifts material planning from firefighting to foresight.

Why Leading Enterprises Choose Aera

As organizations scale and their planning environments grow more complex, having a trusted, intelligent foundation becomes critical. Aera provides exactly that — a proven platform that combines enterprise-grade strength with continuous innovation.

Global companies across industries trust Aera to power millions of supply chain decisions daily. Built on an enterprise-grade foundation with pre-built ERP connectors (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics), Aera integrates quickly into existing environments — minimizing deployment time and maximizing early results.

But reliability is only the beginning. What truly sets Aera apart is how it evolves alongside the business. Agentic AI capabilities enable decisions that adapt as business conditions change, while enterprise support, training, and customer success help organizations scale and sustain value over time. Aera doesn’t just automate processes — it creates autonomy: a system that learns, reasons, and acts so teams can make faster, smarter, and more confident decisions.

The Future of Material Planning Starts Now

Supply chain volatility isn’t slowing — but decision-making can finally keep pace. With proven results and enterprise-ready technology, decision intelligence makes that possible, enabling organizations to move beyond reactive, manual processes toward proactive, AI-driven operations that strengthen resilience and growth. Leveraging the Digital Material Planner Skill, Aera turns material management into a self-optimizing process — detecting risks earlier, preventing shortages, reducing manual effort, and sustaining improvements over time. Together, these capabilities become a core driver of agility and adaptability across the enterprise.

For more on how Aera can help you transform material planning into a source of resilience, efficiency, and strategic advantage, download the whitepaper, Reimagining Material Planning with AI Agents.