MARIONA CANALS & VICTOR FORTEA
Previously the domain of industry specialists and IT, supply chain optimization is now every industry’s concern. Whether you are in retail, shipping, logistics or transportation, data is helping firms to disrupt and optimize operations, while ushering new business models and concepts.
At a recent Computerworld Hong Kong Executive Panel Discussion entitled From Good to Great: transforming your business for the Digital Supply Chain, participants noted that the biggest agents of disruption as a result of data availability were Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics.
Living the IoT promise
IoT is already helping to shape our daily lives. Today when we drive, we rely on traffic maps that use this data. We also have smart devices that tell you the condition of goods inside a container, and without this data, a lot of perishable produce, life science and biomedical equipment will turn bad. So IoT is already helping and enabling the supply chain to be better than previously possible.
IoT offers three distinct benefits: better monitoring, improve control over data and accurate forecasting. At a retail shop, you can already gauge the demand in real time right down to a specific SKU. This helps you to feed that information to distribution centers and manufacturers and manufacture to order,
CargoSmart looks at IoT in four dimensions. The first is demand sensing where firms can use IoT sensor data to understand actual demand and fine tune inventory levels in near real time. “When you can make a very thin inventory investment, you gain a finer grain of visibility, helping you to find the best routes and alternatives for replenishing inventory,” Louie said.
Optimization, the second dimension, allows firms to ensure that the right stock is available from the right warehouse. It can potentially change the way you plan and build warehouses, while helping you to develop alternative routes to each distribution center. “It is all about minimizing risk and saving time. It is moving from a stock driven model to a real-time stream based model,” Louie said.
Monitoring is the third dimension allowing you to see what is really happening across the supply chain, at any moment in time. Louie noted that IoT sensor data can allow all the people involved in your supply chain to use that information to monitor the “health of the supply chain.”
Lastly, customer services will benefit from IoT data. It allows customers to get the right information about the products proactively.
From predictive to proactive
Analytics is another area where supply chains are evolving. While it is not new for supply chain analysts, new advancements and better availability of data is making predictive analytics become real-time and even proactive. It is also democratizing it for all staff, not just a few specialists.
One reason for this improvement in analytics that was highlighted during the panel discussion was the rise of cloud. Cloud is allowing firms to store immense amount of data, crunch, analyze and gain new insights. It is also creating new business opportunities..
In turn, data-driven disruption has made finding “the critical business moment in the supply chain” vital for firms. He explained that traditionally many firms have done well from “an inside-out perspective” by optimizing the inventory, transportation routes, warehouse management etc. “But one area new disruptors are doing well is understanding the entire customer journey,” Zaw said.
“For example, when I buy gadgets and do research online, I am already adding my digital fingerprint to marketing materials. These are data points that are readily available to be taken advantage by the Digital Supply Chain. By the time I get to a shop or an online retailer, my decision is already largely made,” he added.
Business Logistics 