The Pulse of India’s Supply Chain: How Flipkart Plans for 500 Million Customers — Part 1

Flipkart's engineering team details how they built the Central Planning Platform (CPP) to manage supply chain operations at massive scale — 500 million users, 150 million products, and 4 million daily shipments. The post explains two core lifecycle flows (inventory placement and customer delivery), the three structural challenges that drove the need for CPP (systemic interdependence, predictive precision vs. lead times, and dynamic scalability), and the two-layer architecture of the solution: a Forecasting Layer using ML/deep learning for multi-grain demand signals with hierarchical reconciliation, and an Optimization Layer using Operations Research to solve millions of constraints simultaneously. Key outcomes include a 90% reduction in planning cycle time (10 days to 1 day), 50% increase in 1-day deliveries, 50% reduction in unhealthy inventory, and 10% manpower reduction. The work was recognized as a finalist for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award in Operations Research.