PARC awarded second Efficient Consumer Response project

Prof Aris Syntetos has recently been awarded research funding for the project ‘Using machine learning to control inventory record inaccuracies’. The problem the project addresses lies in the discrepancy between what we think we have in stock (based on our computerised system) and what we physically have in stock which, multiplied across thousands of products typically stored in retailing, equates to a significant issue!

Funded by Efficient Consumer Response (ECR), the project will be jointly delivered by Cardiff University, EM-Lyon (Professor Yacine Rekik) and TU Darmstadt (Professor Christoph Glock), and will explore how machine learning can help make more robust inventory control decisions in the context of inaccurate stock records. The project will be delivered with the participation of nine of Europe's largest retailers.

In a previous ECR project, Aris, Yacine and Christoph found that up to 60% of inventory records are incorrect, and that when the inventory records are corrected sales can increase by 4 - 8%. More information about that project may be found in the ECR website, and the webpages of the PARC Institute.