Industry 4.0 has brought in a vision today, for most enterprises to become digitalised. The supply chain today is a series of very discrete, siloed steps that are taken forward through marketing, product development, manufacturing, distribution and finally into the hands of the customer. Its time that the traditional supply chains should evolve and transform into a smart and highly efficient digital supply chain system.
Digitalising your supply chain will help built that transparency among all the players involved in the ecosystem. From the raw material suppliers, components parts, to the transporters of those finished goods and finally to the customer demanding fulfillment. The digital supply network will offer a new rate of responsiveness that will enable the companies to provide the most efficient and transparent delivery system.
To add some real value into your business and serve your customers better consider these five steps in the right direction.
A. Integration of Warehouse management System– Warehouse management system is a way of planning how to become more systematic and precise in anticipating problems. This tool should enable a warehouse manager to swiftly cater to multiple clients by efficiently recording the overall inventory & its movement. WMS works in multi customer, multi-location, multi warehouse scenario to seamlessly manage multi-channel fulfilment for you and provide you the solution which best fits your requirement. A supply chain digital-transformation, then, is about establishing how applications can improve cost, agility and inventory levels to drive operational excellence.
B. Enable track and trace functionality- By enabling functionalities like track and trace, business partners, other authorities and finally the consumers get the chance to verify the capabilities of risk management. Potential risks and those that have already occurred can be tackled in a responsive and documented way.
C. Embrace new technologies– Once new technologies are embraced the supply chain will become explicitly transparent. It gives full control to the managers with the orders and a system as well that automates everything. Same goes to the customers who get a detailed update about their shipments. Updates include the route information, quantity of the product, the dates when it will be delivered etc.
D. Rise of the warehouse robots- This is one technological advancement everyone should imbibe. The one thing that today’s Distribution and fulfillment centers need is flexibility in order to meet their operational requirements. Today, there are many types of robots available to help with DC/FC operations tasks. These robots assist with loading, unloading, sorting, picking etc. Their expertise can also be used for navigation purposes.
E. Embrace Industry 4.0 vision- Industry 4.0 incorporates and the development of innovative information and communication technologies into the industry. The main aim is to encourage the intelligent networking of products and processes along the value chain. Encompassing all these factors can help take a step forward in to the world of digitalisation.
Digital technologies are likely to make significant changes in the industry which will create winners and losers at a pace which has not been experienced before. Companies identifying these digital trends will affect their business and the customers in an optimistic way that will further help them navigate to the best changes ahead.
Author Bio-
I am a budding and aspiring blogger and my area of interests are Supply Chain, Logistics, Retail Logistics, International Freight etc. Being a writer by profession and by choice I like to contribute to various quality websites especially those who talk about my area of interests. We grow by making people happy and successful.
Jyoti Sharma
Consultant/Writer