Top 10 Technologies Shaping the Next-Generation Supply Chain 

The heightened level of globalization, product complexity and increased demands of customers are some of the top factors affecting the supply chain industry today. These have led to the adoption of transformative technology, which has tremendously reshaped the supply chain industry from the renowned pure operation hub into the epicenter of modern business innovation.

Whether from raw materials’ status or finished goods’ location, numerous forward-thinking companies are using sensors and the ever-improving internet connectivity to gather and collect data. It is undoubtedly sufficient to say that the supply chain industry is becoming increasingly efficient and agile with these advanced technologies.

Have you ever envisaged what the supply chain will look like in 2030? Let’s look at some of the advanced technologies that will optimize your supply chain.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the IoT market will record a 24.9% growth by 2027. By implication, numerous other aspects of your business will enjoy increased integration and interconnection. The primary purpose of this is to deliver insights and help companies make informed decisions that better position their supply chain.

Businesses are expected to invest heavily in deploying IoTs, taking advantage of improved business processes, production and assets management and fleet and freight monitoring and control. For instance, when a business has an enhanced tracking method in place, suppliers can generate firsthand insight and analysis to take proper care of products that are prone to spoilage en-route and rerouting those products to consumers close by to the possibility of impaired transportation conditions. When you have a more streamlined process to eliminate wastage or prevent other mishaps, you tend to benefit from increased revenues and more successful outcomes.

There are many benefits associated with using IoT to control your business processes. Of course, it doesn’t work without its risks. While it exposes you to the dangers of cybersecurity or cyber threats, the overall benefit of your business outweighs the potential hazards.

With IoT, you can quickly identify and detect patterns and inherent problems before their occurrence, giving you an insight into what works and what doesn’t. Ultimately, you will soon know how to improve and do better, thus gaining an edge over others.

Blockchain technology brings about a decentralized platform, allowing transaction validation, recording and encryption. You can easily replace the often slow and manual business processes with blockchain technology’s strengthened and enhanced traceability.

Originally designed and configured to support cryptocurrency exchanges and transactions, the blockchain network has expanded its tentacles across other business sectors. One of the sectors where blockchain technology is used is the supply chain, where a wide variety of goods or products is often traced to the rightful owners.

As an internet-based platform, Blockchain technology operates independently as a digitized ledger to record, validate and distribute transactions to millions of users within the network across the universe. These transactions are usually encrypted on the blockchain network, ensuring an advanced security level and instant transmission and remittance of transactions.

Public domains use permission less ledgers for consensus verification. Similarly, these ledgers can be centralized between known and trusted users. Once all actions within the sequence of data sets are approved, users aren’t allowed to change the nodes. These can benefit the supply chain, requiring personal data validation in real-time for advanced analysis and visualization.

In the supply chain industry, big data is typically generated on a large scale. Cloud-based artificial intelligence can harness and convert these data into tremendous insights. With the integration of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, supply chain operations can be dramatically transformed and increased in complexity over the next decade.

Furthermore, predictive analytics can also be used in combination with cloud computing and AI, past trends and market indicators to facilitate several processes. These include powering the automation of all functions, analyzing carriers’ performances, improving customer support, providing order shipment information in real-time and many more.

Cloud computing and AI can also provide valuable responses to supply chain difficulties in real-time, retrieval, processing and validation of supplier information, monitoring supply/vendor capabilities and tracking data on supplier’s compliance or performance and many more. Remember, the supply change industry depends on data quality and relevant details to arrive at the significant picture values. Without analytics, you can’t drive technological elements that produce insightful tactics and desired results.

Robots have been predicted to record widespread growth over the next decade, especially in the supply chain industry, which often involves lower-value, potentially dangerous and huge-risk tasks.

While robots have enjoyed unprecedented attention in the e-commerce world, it is not surprising to record the same colossal growth in the logistics world. Usually, applications built on robotic process automation include drones, trains, trucks, storage, retrieval systems and last-mile deliveries. The foreseeable growth of autonomous robots could undoubtedly increase efficiency and productivity, improve employee safety, reduce workplace risks and increase revenue due to improved order fulfillment and speedy delivery, leaving customers completely satisfied.

Today’s supply chain industry has since grown from simply moving items from one location to another. Nowadays, it deals with transporting multiple materials or objects from various stations across different locations in the shortest possible period.

How do you achieve this in the supply chain? 

There is a need for a fast solution that embraces flexibility, reliability, dependability and productivity. And that is where Autonomous Mobile Robots come into play.

For about a decade now, AMRs have gained popularity in warehouses, distribution centers and production facilities worldwide. As contained in the latest global mobile robot forecast, the use of AMRs is expected to grow exponentially between 2020 and 2026.

Autonomous Mobile Robots addresses the challenges faced in the supply chain industry today. Whether it is intricate picking fulfillment or movement of pallets and enormous payloads, AMRs can conveniently automate several manual actions and activities in the warehouse.

Unlike Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGR), AMRs can perform various operations from a digital map of their surrounding environment. And best of all, they require little or no infrastructural modification. As the existing warehouse management system provides the information regarding the tasks to be executed to the robot, the digital map, sensors, cameras and the safety mechanism then proceeds to provide all the necessary information required to operate efficiently.

To top it all off, AMRs are more affordable than traditional automation systems and are also easily scalable once in place. Whether for short-term seasonality or long-term growth, AMRs are highly flexible in operation, and they are becoming increasingly relevant in supply chain management.

Undeniably, distributed inventory management has enjoyed rising popularity in the supply chain world as it ensures that products are delivered to customers as fast as possible upon receipt of orders. Indeed, it has become the most efficient, efficient and cost-effective way to minimize transit time and costs while at the same time optimizing customer service and reducing loss and damage.

The Distributed Inventory Management system has a primary goal of ensuring that the proper inventory gets delivered in the correct quantity at the right location and at the right time. You may find it difficult to determine the exact stock level required at specific locations. However, a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence makes it easy to evaluate and enhance the accuracy of the predictive data process.

With this technology’s sudden rise in popularity, inventory distribution in the modern-day supply chain is becoming more accessible, accurate and customer centric.

In a dashboard snapshot, you can easily access and visualize the inventory levels in multiple warehouses and see how to improve. Then, the distribution manager generates transfer orders and sets up the necessary measures to reduce cases of inventory imbalance in the future.

Undoubtedly, the future of delivery of e-commerce orders is getting more enhanced with innovative technologies like drones and driverless vehicles.

The desire of every industry, including the supply chain, to embrace innovative technologies is understandable considering the rapid surge in e-commerce due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With this sudden rise comes the challenge of delivering ordered products in millions of packages either to the congested urban areas, the far-reaching rural communities or even the sprawling suburbs. Realistically, it is a massive task that conventional vehicles may not even be able to deliver, considering the restrictions accompanied by the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is where smart machines like drones and driverless vehicles come into play to get the job done efficiently, effectively, cheaply and on time.

Driverless and drone vehicles are now blazing the trail of providing companies with solutions to many issues. While it doesn’t only offer a cost-effective delivery system, it reduces human-human interactions while delivering access to both the hard-to-reach and remote areas. Indeed, considering the worsening situations of human drivers in the US and UK, drones and driverless vehicles may be a positive solution for the future.

After about three decades of development, 3D printings are gaining widespread traction and disrupting traditional businesses. In the 21st century world, it is interesting to note that supply chains across a wide range of industries like healthcare, aerospace, electronics, construction and more are now devising solutions to benefit significantly from market opportunities. Nowadays, it is easy for medical doctors and physicians to print a person’s cardiovascular system model before venturing into invasive surgery. 

Alternative explained as additive manufacturing, 3D printing injects items or materials using a series of successive patterns to build a three-dimensional object. 

With 3D printing, companies now enjoy the opportunity of designing and creating new and customized products to meet the growing needs of end-users. To maintain the competition and challenge the status quo in the marketplace, companies are now resorting to 3D printing to create products more quickly and efficiently.

Indeed, companies cannot deny that the opportunities brought by 3D printing cannot be underestimated. It is a game-changer as specific spare parts can be printed on demand. This translates to minimized lead times for customers, lower inventory levels and cost-effective warehousing.

As the name implies, machine learning allows machinery to establish an interaction with its surrounding environments. Whenever machines are programmed with a set of well-defined instructions, they can seamlessly change and evolve.

The interaction of innovative technologies such as predictive analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence enables brands and businesses to optimize their supply chain. Optimization could include:

It could also extend to managing inventory building and developing effective and efficient plans to improve customer satisfaction experiences. The overall bottom line is to boost the comprehensive internal workflow system while also boosting the company’s ROI.

Combining data from predictive methods with the algorithm makes it easy to analyze larger data sets and develop collective insight without human interference. With this insight, you can improve your decision-making ability, which helps to drive cost reduction and boost your entire customer experience. Additionally, enhancement of inventory optimization, visibility, real-time product intelligence and strategic sourcing through supply chain analysis are also benefits of machine learning, analytics and artificial intelligence in supply chain management.

Computer graphics are also increasingly utilized in the supply chain and there is a projected rise in the future. They are used to schedule tasks, group decision-making and expert systems in the supply chain. As it increases in popularity, there are thoughts of it doing even more in the coming years.

There you have it! Perhaps the top 10 ways technology can optimize the supply chain. Other technology tools include 5G and Starlink, product lifecycle management software (PLMS), radio technology, handheld devices, telematics and many more. Remember, staying ahead of the competition means that you must adapt to emerging technology tools continually.

If you are trying to understand how the intersection of people, process and technology can improve your strategic advantage, we possess the required skills, knowledge and experience to help your business thrive.

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