Mediaboss Marketing

Over the past three decades, there has been a significant shift in the way products and services moved from origin to the final customer. And there is an increasing need for supply chains to adapt with the current societal and technology trends to ensure they are resilient, sustainable, and profitable.

Although there are many technologies being build/researched in this space. For the scope of this article, I will discuss three technologies I believe can have a significant impact to enhance operations, processes, and payments across the supply chains of the future.

Enabling technologies Computer Vision, SLAM, LiDAR and RFID

Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience of the real world with computer generated content and it has a potential to revolutionize the last mile of the supply chain. It can be used by warehouse and last-mile delivery workers to provide them with real-time guidance and visual overlay on critical information such as product details, product location, and optimized storage or delivery routes. These applications can also be used to enhance customer shopping experience by providing them with product information on where to find a particular product in large retail stores or empower them to virtually try on products such as clothes and furniture by superimposing these virtual product models into real environment. These applications will help reduce the lead time, increase customer personalization before the product gets shipped leading to a reduced likelihood of returns simultaneously saving costs for the retailers/ manufacturers.

Enabling technologies AI, ML, NLP, RFID and IoT sensor data

Digital twin is a virtual representation of physical machines, processes or people that can be updated leveraging real time data. Digital twins can be used in parallel with data acquired from IoT sensors and AI/ML models. As most businesses/supply chains follow a push based supply chain approach, they often encounter problems such as dead-stock, stockout, and channel stuffing which lead to negative business outcomes. The use of digital twin will help eliminate these risks by using a simulation before and/or after a particular process/product in built or deployed in the real world leading us to identify bottleneck processes, machines or people sooner and help us predict or manage these risks and capabilities across the supply chain leading to improved performance and enhanced remote monitoring. Using digital twin, we can improve product development optimize inventory management, forecast demand and manage buffer stocks effectively to have a sustained competitive advantage in the market.

Enabling technologies Blockchain

One of the primary challenges in businesses/ supply chains is the lack of transparency and traceability, particularly when dealing with multiple stakeholders and managing complex business transactions. Smart contracts address this challenge by providing a transparent and immutable record of all contract-related information and transaction history on the blockchain through the use of cryptography. This enables real-time visibility into the movement of goods, payments, and other critical aspects enhancing transparency and traceability. By implementing smart contracts, businesses can improve operational efficiency, reduce risk of fraud or non-compliance, and create a more transparent and reliable ecosystem for their business networks. Smart contracts can be used by individual component suppliers, small and medium size businesses, and by large corporates dealing with multiple suppliers and supplier networks.

These technologies can reduce a significant amount of time and money and can be used across industries such as E-commerce, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, education, etc.

Read more:

Digital Supply Chains. The future of supply chain and business | by ... - Medium