IMTS 2026: b2wise Offers 48-Hour Supply Chain Challenge
September 19, 2026b2wise, a global provider in Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning, is bringing a direct challenge to conventional supply chain planning approaches at IMTS 2026, where Global CEO Kevin Boake will speak about the limitations of advanced planning systems and the potential for AI to make those limitations more pronounced.
Boake will present "Are Advanced Planning Systems (APS) Killing Your Competitiveness? And Why AI Will Make It Worse!" on Monday, September 14, from 11:30 AM to Noon at the IMTS Technology Hub. IMTS 2026 takes place September 14–19 at McCormick Place in Chicago.
The session will examine a fundamental question facing manufacturers as they invest in sophisticated planning technology: can systems designed to standardize and optimize planning actually make manufacturers less responsive when markets, supply chains, and customer requirements change faster than the systems themselves?
According to b2wise, the issue is not whether manufacturers need advanced technology, but whether their planning technology can adapt quickly enough to support the decisions manufacturers need to make.
"Manufacturers have spent decades investing in systems designed to make planning more sophisticated, but sophistication isn't the same thing as competitiveness," said Boake. "If your planning system takes months to change when your business can change overnight, you have a fundamental problem. AI has the potential to solve that problem, but it can also make it worse if we simply put AI on top of systems that were never designed to adapt."
The discussion comes as manufacturers face growing pressure to improve responsiveness while managing inventory, capacity, demand volatility, and modern complex global supply networks. b2wise argues that the next generation of planning technology needs to give planners greater ability to respond to change rather than forcing every new requirement through lengthy IT development cycles.
That philosophy is also behind b2wise's 48-Hour Challenge, which the company will bring to IMTS. The initiative invites manufacturers to submit their biggest supply chain planning challenge and challenges b2wise to return a working solution within 48 hours.
The company will use IMTS as an opportunity to engage directly with manufacturers about the problems they are currently facing, rather than asking them to start with a technology specification. Challenges can involve areas including forecasting, inventory, supply planning, capacity, scheduling, diagnostics, and reporting.
The 48-Hour Challenge is designed to demonstrate b2wise's approach to AI-enabled planning, in which AI helps planners build and adapt tools while people remain responsible for validating the logic and making the resulting decisions. Rather than replacing the planner with an autonomous agent, b2wise's approach is intended to put more capability in the hands of the people closest to the planning problem.
b2wise will also host a 12-part LinkedIn Live series around the 48-Hour Challenge beginning September 1. During the series, hosted by Martin Sewell and Laura Monroe, selected challenges will be turned into working solutions during 30-minute live sessions. Challenges that are not selected for a live demonstration will still receive a solution within 48 hours.
"IMTS is exactly the kind of environment where this conversation belongs," Boake said. "You're bringing together manufacturers who are investing heavily in automation, digitalization, and AI, but technology investment only matters if it helps a manufacturer respond faster and compete better. We want to talk about what happens when the planning system itself becomes the constraint."
Attendees can meet with the b2wise team throughout IMTS at Booth 135644, East Building, Level 3, and see how the company's approach to demand-driven planning, AI and rapid planning-tool development can be applied to real manufacturing challenges.
For more information contact:
b2wise
b2wise-ai.com/
IMTS at Booth 135644
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