Reducing waste is essential to protecting margins and building a more resilient supply chain, yet limited visibility and manual analysis make it hard to act quickly on at-risk inventory. AI and automation now make it possible to detect risks early and take intelligent, coordinated action before materials or finished goods are lost.

With the Business Waste Mitigation Skill, the Aera decision intelligence agent has helped organizations achieve 99% coverage across potential risks, reduce human effort by up to 80%, and cut resolution time by as much as 70%. These results demonstrate how decision intelligence turns waste management from a reactive task into a proactive, closed-loop process that delivers measurable value.

The Challenges: Hidden Waste, Manual Analysis, and Slow Decisions

Most supply chain organizations struggle to manage at-risk inventory before it becomes waste. Short-dated or excess stock often goes unnoticed due to fragmented data, disconnected systems, and siloed teams. Common challenges include:

• No visibility into at-risk inventory caused by inconsistent data sharing and disconnected systems.
• Manual waste analysis that forces teams to reconcile mismatches by hand, delaying action and recovery.
• Siloed decision-making across planning, demand, and logistics functions, leading to missed opportunities.
• Inconsistent margin recovery due to ad-hoc, non-standardized decision processes.

Left unresolved, these issues lead to unnecessary write-offs, slower execution, and significant margin erosion across the supply chain.

The Aera Solution: AI-Driven Waste Mitigation

Aera, the decision intelligence agent, uses the Business Waste Mitigation Skill to detect at-risk inventory and recommend the most effective mitigation path, whether through redeployment, promotion, liquidation, donation, or scrap. It does this by:

• Identifying at-risk inventory. It matches supply and demand at the order-line and batch level to surface short-dated, blocked, and excess stock.
• Determining optimal mitigation strategy. It evaluates eligibility rules, transport feasibility, and cost-benefit tradeoffs to recommend the most effective mitigation action.
• Generating actionable recommendations. It creates ready-to-execute plans for redeployment, promotions, marketplace listings, donations, or scrap.
• Enabling rapid execution. It assigns recommendations to planning, category, demand, and logistics teams with clear supporting insights.

Behind the scenes, a system of AI agents performs batch-level matching, shelf-life analysis, and cost-benefit optimization, learning from outcomes over time to continually improve accuracy and speed.

Case Study: From Reactive Response to Intelligent Recovery

A global consumer packaged goods (CPG) company struggled with growing losses due to short-dated inventory and fragmented processes. Manual waste analysis delayed action, while disconnected planning and logistics teams missed opportunities for recovery.

After implementing Aera’s Business Waste Mitigation Skill, the company automated risk detection and mitigation planning. Within weeks, Aera generated daily recommendations managing millions in cost-of-goods value and delivered measurable results:

• 99% coverage across all potential risks
• 60–80% reduction in human effort
• 50–70% reduction in resolution time

Together, these improvements enabled faster recovery, reduced waste, and significantly improved margin performance across the enterprise.

Why Aera: What Sets It Apart

Aera transforms waste mitigation from a manual, inconsistent process into a proactive, intelligent system of action powered by decision intelligence. By connecting data, decision logic, and execution in one closed loop, Aera helps teams move from reactive management to predictive control. What sets it apart:

• Unified decision intelligence integrating inventory data, supply and demand projections, and mitigation strategies within a single connected platform.
• AI-augmented workflows enhancing productivity through intelligent, batch-level matching and sequencing.
• Closed-loop execution enabling end-to-end automation — from risk detection to mitigation action — with continuous learning and improvement.

With Aera, organizations can recover more value, minimize waste, and achieve faster, smarter decisions across their entire supply chain.

Ready To Transform Your Waste Management Strategy?

For more on how Aera can help you identify at-risk inventory, maximize recovery, and reduce waste with AI-driven decision intelligence, download the Business Waste Mitigation Skill brief or schedule a demo.