eld, McKinney says. The current generation of technology builders, in contrast, also brings experience in supply chain. “They can create business value and software that actually works,” McKinney adds. As deployments of these technologies expand, companies and supply chain organizations will want to adapt. “If companies are afraid of technology and automation and say, ‘We’ll do okay without going after it,’ they are not going to stay around,” Fleming says. n
tracking, ensure contract compliance, and promote ethical, sustainable sourcing. Despite predictions of growth in these technologies and credible claims that they can offer more streamlined, intelligent, and exible supply chains, some supply chain leaders are skeptical, often for good reason. “We have been promised automation and technology for a long time,” McKinney says. Yet many solutions have failed to meet their promises. One reason is that the individuals working on the technology often had limited experience in the supply chain
goods are heading in the same direction with carriers who are already driving that way, cutting both costs and the environmental impact of the shipments. Distributed ledger technology. Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, is often associated with cryptocurrency, yet its applications can extend to the supply chain and logistics functions, as it offers increased traceability and tracking. Because of the way blockchain technology collects and stores information, it creates permanent, immutable records of transactions. This can improve product security and
We’ll see more automation, not just in terms of robotic process automation, but deeper use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate the decision-making that we currently rely on humans to perform. The technology has rapidly advanced over the past few years and the organizational acceptance is just starting to catch up. –Lachelle Buchanan, Vice President, Logility Decision intelligence will completely transform supply chain management, delivering a new competitive advantage by improving performance, making logistics more ecient and sustainable, and elevating customer service. This revolution has already started. Supply chains are using AI and machine learning technologies to automate decision- making, retaining a digital memory of decisions to build institutional knowledge and guide future decisions. –Fred Laluyaux, CEO, Aera Technology We’ll witness a tsunami of trusted data into the supply chain, enabling a level of visibility never before possible thanks to the incorporation of IoT, cloud, and blockchain. IoT will provide visibility into key parameters such as location, temperature, humidity, vibration, and more. Added to a trusted blockchain, this data will help automate chain-of-custody tracing. The Artificial intelligence will completely transform supply chain management in the next five years. From faster, smarter quoting and routing to better accuracy and productivity in the warehouse, AI has the potential to optimize every link in the supply chain. –Gabriel Ruz, Chief Innovation Ocer, Magaya Supply chain management will move through significant waves of digitization and AI-based automation. Operating closer to the edge and more in real-time, companies will continually assess their inventory and velocity automating replenishment and purchasing. adoption of cloud technologies stitches entire solutions together. –Karthik Ranjan, LoRa Cloud Solutions and Partnerships Leader, Semtech Negotiations based on projected volume and available oers will stream across systems with less and less human intervention required to connect supply and demand. Customer expectations will continue to grow in terms of product availability driving complex service level agreements to be monitored using IoT. The last mile will remain a major challenge as despite the best eorts and technologies the number of uncontrolled variables represents a daunting challenge even five years into the future. –Jonah Ellin, Chief Product Ocer, 1010data
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