Funded by: UKRI through Innovate UK
This is a new partnership between the CeLSA at the University of Kent and Aylesford-based B Corp certified sustainable packaging firm Priory Direct which aims to improve efficiency and service levels within sustainable packaging provision to the fast-growing e-commerce sector.
Priory Direct supplies over 21,000 businesses in the UK with sustainable packaging solutions and faces a high level of supply chain volatility and complex customer purchasing behaviour, which in turn significantly complicates demand prediction and inventory management. This KTP will be a key initiative and an important step up for the company to develop its in-house advanced statistical and machine-learning expertise required to develop robust and reliable forecasting tools.
The partnership is expected to lead to an increase in market share and improvements in stock availability, demand forecasting, and logistics carbon footprint through enhanced data handling and supply chain analytics.
It has been made possible by a £265,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through Innovate UK.
CeLSA’s Director, Dr Ramin Raeesi, will provide expertise in logistics modelling and Dr Zhen Zhu will advise on machine learning, predictive modelling and demand forecasting.
CeLSA will be supporting Priory Direct to provide the missing-knowledge in data-mining and other relevant areas of inventory-control, stock-planning, supply-chain-analytics, modelling and programming to help them develop a bespoke and compatible forecasting model that is capable of capturing the high-level of demand-uncertainty faced.
The KTP will run for 30 months.