GenLots' Safety Stock Optimizer is now live. The digital solution was born to address supply chain challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis. With customers such as the German pharmaceutical company Merck, the startup is running several pilot projects.
Over the past few months, supply chain resilience took the spotlight as companies struggled to satisfy customer demand. The sanitary crisis amplified conventional problems such as inaccurate forecasts, transportation delays, and quality control problems, while companies’ safety stock levels were stress-tested, making it difficult for some to guarantee their service levels.
Safety stocks exist as companies cannot forecast what will happen in the future with 100% accuracy. “Would this be possible, we would only need to carry the required amount of material needed for production until the next delivery” explains Matthieu Dumont, GenLots spokesperson. As the uncertainty grew with the latest global COVID-19 crisis, major industrial companies were tempted to raise their safety stock levels to increase their chances of reaching the targeted service level.
Benefits of a safety stock optimizer
To determine the safety stock levels, some operation managers resort to subjective methods, including intuition, experience, or knowledge of the market. These methods are simple and time-efficient but are prone to error and they fail to take into account all the cost optimization that comes with the implications of increasing or decreasing those levels.
Merck leverages GenLots solution
In the wake of the Corona crisis, companies embraced and sought for digital solutions to ensure continuity. For the supply chain market, GenLots, based at EPFL Innovation Park, responded by developing a Safety Stock Optimizer. The tool is already available on the GenLots platform for its current clients including Merck.
The Vaud startup founded in 2017 intends to integrate into the near future further developments to optimize the results for certain materials. Among other projects, the company is currently integrating forecast variability into its formula for one of its clients. This will allow for increased safety stock level precision and supply security.
(Press release/ES)
The new Swiss Venture Capital Report was published on 26 January. It analyses 304 financing rounds closed in 2020 and includes further article such as an interview with Michael Hengartner, President of the ETH Board, and a list of Swiss "soonicorns". 
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