Presenters Name: Hector Williamson
Employment Title:
Company: Chemcloud
Biography: Hector Williamson is the co-founder of ChemCloud, an AI-powered procurement platform focused on the chemical industry. Prior to ChemCloud, Hector was a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on procurement and digital transformation projects for ASX20 companies
Presentation Title: Your Next Hire Doesn’t Need a Lab Coat: How AI Agents Can Reshape Coatings Supply Chains
Presentation Abstract: Over the last 2-3 years we have seen rapid improvement in the ability of large language models to respond to questions, perform analysis, reason and perform tasks. These models are exceptional at many of the tasks that make up supply chain administrative work – data entry, reading documents, comparing documents, analysing data. And yet, AI agents are not widely embedded in supply chains of coatings manufacturers. This presentation proposes a framework for successful implementation of AI Agents in highly regulated industries such as coatings manufacturing – and identifies the barriers that have made implementation difficult to date. We use two workflows specific to the technical and supply-chain teams at coating manufacturers to ground our framework in a practical and applicable way. Initially, we introduce a practical mental model for how to think about AI Agents, and how to identify and prioritise the tasks that are appropriate for full or part automation. Then, we discuss the practical implementation steps required to implement an AI Agent and set them up for success, including key questions like – how does the AI Agent access my systems and data? How does it do this securely? What happens if it can’t perform the task? Should I build my own agents or buy them? Finally we look at how you track, manage, maintain and improve your AI Agent over time. We conclude with a provocation: for most coatings manufacturers, the capacity of your technical and supply chain teams is a key constraint; perhaps in the future the best way to grow this capacity will not be through hiring more chemists, but by engaging AI Agents.
