Kraft Heinz and Microsoft team on supply chain innovation

The Kraft Heinz Company and Microsoft Corp. are joining forces to develop solutions designed to accelerate the consumer goods giant’s transformation strategy and enable a more resilient supply chain. 

The initiative is pitched as one of Kraft Heinz’s largest technology investments to date and a key driver of the company’s AGILE@SCALE approach. 

With Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform, Kraft Heinz will migrate the majority of its global datacentre assets to Azure and its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to SAP on Azure. 

“As part of our AGILE@SCALE transformation, we are building a leading tech ecosystem to benefit the entire value chain,” says Carlos Abrams-Rivera, Executive Vice President and President, North America, Kraft Heinz. 

“Our collaboration with Microsoft is a critical piece of our transformation strategy, providing us with the machine learning and advanced analytics to drive innovation and efficiencies across the supply chain so we can get products into the market faster, better serve our customers and, ultimately, deliver on the sustained and growing consumer demand our iconic brands continue to experience.”

An example of how the companies will collaborate is the creation of a Supply Chain Control Tower for Kraft Heinz. 

By serving as air traffic control across the company’s full product portfolio, the Control Tower will provide real-time visibility into plant operations and automation of its supply chain distribution across Kraft Heinz’s 85 product categories. 

Furthermore, Kraft Heinz will create “digital twins” for its 34 owned manufacturing facilities in North America to help test and perfect solutions and processes before applying them on the plant floor. 

Finally, Kraft Heinz and Microsoft will create a joint Digital Innovation Office to co-engineer “new solutions that will help the company reimagine digital manufacturing and drive efficiencies with the help of hybrid experiences powered by Microsoft AI, machine learning and IoT”.

Supply chainStaff WriterThe Kraft Heinz Company, Microsoft, Supply chain, IoT, Retail technology, ERP systems, SAP, Microsoft Azure, DatacentresComment