Why This Matters to Distributors: Mountainland Supply is putting artificial intelligence to work on a costly distribution problem: inventory sitting in the wrong place. The distributor will use AI to identify slow-moving products and shift them among 42 branches based on local demand.
Mountainland Supply Co. is deploying an artificial intelligence-powered inventory system across 42 branches to reduce dead stock and improve how products are positioned across its distribution network.
The Orem, Utah-based distributor selected Thrive Technologies’ Thermostock Rebalance platform to analyze inventory and identify products that can be moved from locations where demand has slowed to branches where they are more likely to sell, the companies announced Sept. 2.
The technology will integrate with Mountainland’s Epicor Eclipse enterprise resource planning system, allowing the distributor to add AI-based inventory analysis without replacing its core ERP platform.
For Mountainland, the objective is straightforward: use data already generated across its branch network to find inventory that is no longer selling in one market but remains in demand somewhere else.
That addresses a fundamental challenge for multi-branch distributors. Companies need enough inventory locally to maintain product availability and fill rates, but carrying too much stock at individual branches ties up working capital and increases the risk that products eventually become dead inventory.
Mountainland carries products across plumbing, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, hydronics, waterworks and other categories. Its 42 branches span six states, creating a large pool of inventory that can potentially be repositioned before additional products need to be purchased.
Thrive’s system analyzes inventory and customer purchasing data to identify transfer opportunities. It evaluates demand patterns, including the breadth and recency of customer purchases, to determine where slow-moving products may have a better chance of selling.
Buyers can then prioritize transfers based on factors such as proximity and customer demand.
“We are really excited about our ability to quickly reduce our dead stock,” Matt Scott, Mountainland’s director of inventory, said in a statement.
Scott said Mountainland is already seeing early returns from reducing dead stock, although the company did not disclose specific financial results or inventory reductions.
The deployment represents a practical application of AI in distribution operations, where the technology is increasingly being used to analyze large amounts of transactional data and recommend actions rather than simply generate content or answer employee questions.
In Mountainland’s case, AI is being applied directly to inventory decisions that affect working capital, product availability, and profitability.
The system is designed to identify inventory problems across the network that would be difficult for buyers to continuously analyze manually. Multi-branch distributors can carry tens of thousands of stock-keeping units, making it difficult for purchasing teams to regularly determine whether individual products should remain at a location, be transferred elsewhere or eventually be written down.
Mountainland’s approach also illustrates another emerging model for distributor AI adoption: adding specialized AI applications on top of existing enterprise systems rather than undertaking a major technology replacement.
By integrating with Epicor Eclipse, Mountainland can use its existing inventory and transaction data while applying another analytical layer to determine where products should be positioned.
That turns AI into an operating tool with a measurable objective. Instead of testing a general-purpose AI application, Mountainland is targeting a specific financial problem: reducing the amount of cash tied up in inventory that is unlikely to sell where it currently sits.
If the system works as intended, the payoff is not simply less dead stock. Moving existing inventory to locations where customers are buying it could also reduce unnecessary replenishment purchases, improve inventory turns, and put working capital back to use elsewhere in the business.
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