With the coming of the 4th Industrial Revolution or as it is known Industry 4.0 the supply chain will be inundated with new technology, this always presents a challenge, but it can also provide you with great opportunities if you can learn how to take advantage of it. Supply chain professionals are faced with a variety of new technologies, and if they learn how to use these technologies properly, there are many benefits to be had.
Without up-to-date inventory visibility, retailers need to have extra stock in their stores to deal with both brick-and-mortar and online sales. This leads to increased inventories which can put a strain on finances as well as the supply chain. By more accurately predicting future sales or offtake, supply chain professionals and warehouse managers can reduce inventories by 20-25%.
If you are running a FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) warehouse, it’s essential that you can react quickly to buying trends, and consumer expectations of order today delivery today, which is challenging existing models of warehousing and distribution centers, with many warehouse operators focusing on conversion to fulfillment centers.
Along with standard models of B2B and B2C we are experiencing new models, such as C2C (Consumer 2 Consumer) O2O (Online 2 Offline) P2P (Peer to Peer) and even M2C (Manufacturing 2 Consumer) and doing so with smaller inventories, the M2C model reduces inventories altogether. In addition, an Omni channel economy means you have smaller and more frequent orders coming from a variety of buyers. New technology analysis, Big Data coupled with AI (Artificial Intelligence) can offer you more detailed understanding of sales and can make all the difference. Already IoT (Internet of Things) is connecting more devices to each other and accelerating the order to delivery cycle time.
Technology is already driving logistical planning, with complete visibility of inventory at all times, warehouse managers can see what’s coming in or going out and plan deliveries and orders accordingly.
Are you ready to take advantage of this new technology for your logistics and supply chain operation?
Do you know “what good looks like” (WGL2) in your world?
