[#280] Supply Chain in Numbers - Apr 7, 2025
Lidl's €500M SAP fiasco, F150 Al costs can go up by $400, Augment raises $25M, Infinite Uptime shows 5-10% productivity gains via predictive maintenance, Lumi AI raises $3.7M seed funding
Welcome to “Supply Chain in Numbers.” This newsletter tracks significant numbers from the supply chain world. Five prominent numbers are published every Monday. If you have any feedback, please send it to me.
€500 million botched SAP implementation
Lidl, the German discount retailer, undertook an ambitious SAP implementation that ended in an expensive failure, costing the company approximately €500 million ($600 million USD). This failure has become a key reference point for supply chain and digital transformation leaders worldwide. A significant issue was Lidl’s resistance to modifying its entrenched inventory practices, choosing customization over adopting SAP’s standard retail pricing methodology. This rigidity compromised the project’s foundation. Lidl’s extensive software customization significantly contributed to the project’s failure, exacerbating complexity, inflating costs, and prolonging timelines. In addition, Lidl’s dependence on system integrators without sufficient internal oversight led to misaligned outcomes. The integrators, driven by financial incentives, often extended timelines and complexity unnecessarily. [The Chain]
$400 extra per F-150
President Trump’s reinstated 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are set to hit Ford’s F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the US, particularly hard due to its aluminum-intensive design. While automakers have worked to stockpile materials, much of the high-quality aluminum used in vehicles still comes from Canada. Analysts estimate the tariffs could add around $400 per vehicle in manufacturing costs, with consumers likely bearing the brunt of price increases. The move has reignited concerns from automakers and industry leaders, who warn that higher material costs could disrupt supply chains, inflate vehicle prices, and threaten profitability. [WSJ]
$25 million seed funding
Augment, an AI-driven logistics platform raised a $25 million seed funding. The company has created an “AI teammate”, Augie, designed to organize operations for logistics operations. Unlike traditional automation tools that perform single tasks, Augie integrates with transportation management systems and communication platforms such as Slack, Teams and email. It is capable of managing complex workflows across front- and back-office operations, communicating across multiple channels, escalating issues when human intervention is required and collaborating with human team members to enhance productivity. [Freightwaves]
5 to 10% improvement in productivity
Infinite Uptime, an Indian startup that offers predictive maintenance solutions for factories, has raised $35 million in a Series C funding round to expand its footprint in the U.S. and other markets. It provides predictive maintenance and repair recommendations using proprietary sensors, software analytics, and AI-based diagnostics. It also has a smart dashboard that provides live monitoring capabilities. The startup says its piezoelectric sensors can offer diagnostics in high temperatures as well as complex acidic environments such as phosphoric acid, nitric acid, and sulphuric acid plants. It has secured about five patents in this space. Cumulatively, Infinite Uptime says its solutions have helped customers see downtime savings of 74,274 hours as well as 5% to 10% improvement in productivity, energy efficiency, safety, and compliance. [Tech Crunch]
$3.7 million seed funding
Lumi AI provides a conversational analytics platform enabling retail and supply chain businesses to leverage generative AI models for streamlined, plain-language data analysis, insights generation, and decision-making. It raised $3.7M in seed funding. Powered by a proprietary analytics engine and enterprise-grade controls, Lumi AI goes beyond simple text-to-SQL solutions, introducing a new category of multi-agent applications designed to streamline routine data tasks. Lumi AI can handle a wide range of queries — from straightforward to complex, even vague — delivering deeper intelligence and setting a new standard for conversational analytics, with a future vision of enabling actions and fully harnessing the potential of agentic workflows. [Wamda]