Industries · Industrial Supplies

Cut stockouts across the long tail without over-buying

Whitespace helps industrial and MRO distributors decide reorder quantities and run purchasing with AI, across thousands of SKUs and hundreds of vendors.

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Whitespace agent

Morning. I've reviewed all 18,400 lines. 23 need ordering today, including two bearings on a 6-week lead time. The reason is on every line.

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The problem

What industrial supply distributors tell us about replenishment.

A long tail nobody can review line by line

Thousands of SKUs across hundreds of vendors. The line that should have been top of the list turns up at the bottom of the report, after it has run out.

Lead times vendors don't hit

The quoted lead time and the real one are often weeks apart. When a part runs out, the customer's job stalls even if the sale isn't lost.

Sales and project orders that whipsaw demand

One big job makes a line look busy for months. Stock for every spike and you carry a pile of inventory on everything.

Know-how that sits with one buyer

Which vendor runs late, which line spikes in spring, which customer always over-orders. It lives in one veteran's head, not in the system.

The solution

No more manual line-by-line ordering.

Every line reviewed and explained. Agents work out what each product needs and draft the order. Your buyers check it, sign off line by line and export the PO.

ReorderERP · updated 05:40 Export

Cover by product

SKU

Product

Stock

Sales/wk

Cover

AI order

BRG-6205-2RS

Ball bearing 6205-2RS

2.3 wk

top buyers · last 4 wks

customer	Aug 3	Aug 10	Aug 17	Aug 24
Halden Fabrication	74		96	58
Corbett Machining	41	66		47
Ironbridge Works	28		52
Selby Packaging		35	21	30
Marlow Engineering	15			22

CUT-45-040

Cutoff wheel 4.5 x 0.040in

300

420

0.7 wk

1,500

GLV-NIT-L

Nitrile gloves, large (100)

160

120

1.3 wk

480

VB-B54

V-belt B54

4.5 wk

Every number explains itself, fully traceable and auditable.

Demand to order horizon+64

Free stock + on order−14

AI order, rounded to pack50

80%

time saved on reordering

Fewer stockouts across the long tail that holds up customers' jobs.

Less over-buying on spikes, with orders sized net of stock and open POs.

01 · A long tail nobody can review line by line

Every SKU checked, every morning

Cover is checked against lead time on every line and the AI marks each one order or wait, so nothing urgent hides at the bottom.

02 · Lead times vendors don't hit

Your buyers know which vendors run late

Every line is checked against the lead time on file, and a buyer who knows a vendor is slipping can raise the order before sign-off.

03 · Sales and project orders that whipsaw demand

Spikes questioned, not repeated

Direct-ship jobs and transfers are left out of the sales rate, and the AI asks your buyer before repeating an unusual order.

04 · Know-how that sits with one buyer

The reasoning written on every line

Each order or wait comes with its reason and questions for the buyer, so the thinking is on the PO, not in one person's head.

Beyond inventory planning

Run more of your business on Whitespace

Inventory planning is one product on the Whitespace platform. The same platform runs order processing, customer service and data analysis, plus custom agents for jobs specific to your business.

Agents

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Integrations

Reads from and writes back to your ERP, Outlook, accounting software and WMS.

Specialization for distribution

An agentic harness that makes general-purpose models reliable for distribution workflows.

Large language models

Model-agnostic. Each task runs on the best, most cost-effective model.

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