Wednesday, November 4^th 2026
ASCM Central Jersey Forum & ISCEA Presents:

“AI for Productivity & Technology in Supply Chain”

Connor Pierce, Educator & Mihir Patel, CSCP, SVP Alix Partners

AI for Productivity is a practical introduction to generative AI and how it can be used to improve every day and professional work. The presentation introduces major AI concepts, models, tools, and emerging capabilities, then focuses on effective prompting, iterative collaboration, and practical strategies for getting more useful results. It also addresses common limitations and risks, including hallucinations, data privacy, and the importance of human judgment and verification.
Supply chain teams are being sold AI as the fast path to resilience. But optimization and resilience pull in opposite directions and the same engine that makes your network efficient is quietly removing the buffers, redundancy, and slack that let it survive a shock. It does this faster than any planner would, and it never pauses to ask whether the buffer it just deleted was load-bearing. This session makes the practitioner's case that AI is an amplifier, not a foundation: point it at a network with thin supplier options, limited sub-tier visibility, and unclear decision rights, and it delivers failure faster and with more confidence. Drawing on recent industry data, we'll examine two failure modes the vendors don't market over-optimization and black-swan blindness then lay out a practical framework for where AI genuinely strengthens preparedness and response, and where the fundamentals stay non-negotiable.

Learning objectives:

• Identify AI tools and use cases that can support common personal and professional tasks
• Create and refine prompts that provide clear goals, context, constraints, and desired outputs
• Apply practical strategies such as iteration, task decomposition, and examples to improve AI-generated results
• Evaluate AI outputs for accuracy, uncertainty, bias, and potential risks

Explain why AI-driven optimization can erode resilience even when the model is performing exactly as designed.
Identify the foundational capabilities that must exist before AI can strengthen rather than weaken a supply chain.
Apply a decision framework for distinguishing where AI improves preparedness and response from where traditional risk-management fundamentals remain essential.

Complimentary Open to the Public… Registration required…

Must pre-register at https://cjer.ascm.org by Tuesday, Nov 3rd

6:00 – 6:15 pm ASCM CJER FORUM & ISCEA - Chapter Business & Introduction

6:15 – 7:15 pm   Connor Pierce & Mihir Patel “AI for Productivity & Technology in Supply Chain”

Mihir Patel is a Senior Vice President in the Performance and Technology practice at AlixPartners, leading initiatives to enhance manufacturing performance, optimize supply chains, and build resilient, technology-enabled operating models. His work spans footprint optimization, operational efficiency, and inventory rationalization across global organizations. Mihir is also an author of multiple books on supply chain and holds an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is a trained Instrumentation and Control Engineer.

Connor Pierce is a learning designer with 10 years of experience in higher education, focused in instructional design and educational technology. He graduated with an M.S. from NYU in 2016, and has since worked at Cornell, some startups in between, and now Binghamton University. He is the "Administrator of Online Learning and Instructional Design, with the College of Community and Public Affairs, Binghamton University"