Abstract
An efficient supply chain is important for improving overall productivity and profitability and is hence a crucial company operation. But what about 10 years from now? It may become obsolete with the rapid changes in the innovation solutions out there coupled with the quickly evolving disruptive technologies. What are our priorities? What should be our consideration? What is the future of the Supply Chain Process?
The supply chain management function is in the spotlight today and it is one of the key drivers for sustainable business, profitability, and retention of customers. The supply chain is now a crucial company operation but 10 years from now it may become obsolete with the rapid changes in innovative solutions offered, coupled with the fast-paced evolvement of disruptive technologies.
The power of widespread internet along with digital infrastructure has opened a tremendous opportunity for companies to connect the entire network in their supply chain. It is imperative for companies now to implement strategies to enhance the digitalized supply chain platforms and interfaces to achieve the goal of self-regulating utility that optimally manages end to end work process with minimal human intervention.
However, the limitations of legacy technologies pose a challenge in attaining the goal of end-to-end transparency and data accuracy at this point of time and this is surely the driving force for the quick adoption of digitized supply chain process by companies.
Digital Control Tower
What many companies are exploring is the “digital control tower”, a virtual decision center that provides real-time, end-to-end visibility into complex global supply chains. The tower concept is a physical room staffed with a team of data analysts that works 24/7 by looking into high definition screens which provide real-time information at every step of the supply chain – from order to delivery. It highlights alert on inventory shortfalls or on process bottlenecks well in advance before they happen help teams take proactive correctional steps before the potential problem can take place.
Real-time data, unquestioned accuracy, relentless customer focus, process excellence, and analytical capability underlie the control tower operations.
The efforts are now for an analytical method to structure the movement of physical material, to manage data, for trend analysis, for near and distant sourcing mapping, from order cycle to delivery.
Digitalized technology helps to extract critical business insights from the wealth of data collected to provide companies the much-needed end-to-end visibility into respective value chains, giving an edge to organizations in their competitive business environment and fast track the decision making in such volatile market conditions.
What is trending today in the Indian context:
In India, we have seen the fast track adoption of technology by companies in inventory management, application of AI in forecasting and delivery method analysis, truck aggregation in rapid consolidated delivery to bring down the cost of domestic transportation. These initiatives are further complemented by digitized cross border transaction process as well as by the various government initiatives on ease of doing business, regulatory compliance processes in cross border clearance.
As the digitized environment in business take pace, the policy makers quickly need to address the growing concern of upgrading the skillsets of the existing workforce as well as modifying the traditional education systems to address unemployment and create a workforce ready for the future of the industry. It is important that we do not take for granted these issues as it could potentially impact the development of the nation.
Key Benefits of Digitised Supply Chain
Though the retail industry was the one to reap the first mover advantage, the chemical industry in India is not far from these trends and needs to quickly embrace the digitalization of its supply chain. The key benefits which can be quickly realized by digitized supply chain process for the industry are:
• Improved operational efficiency due to data-enabled intelligence that allows effective decision making
• Improved customer experience due to optimized, timely, effective execution and forecasting of logistics needs of clients
• Safety in supply chain management by reducing human interactions and risk of accidents which is very important for chemical companies which are a growing concern with transportation in India
• Implementation of sustainable processes through optimization of resources, including energy consumption
• Seamless and end-to-end visibility of the supply chain through digitally connected devices
• Optimized warehousing and factory store management by reducing human intervention and enabling more machine-to-machine interaction
• Management of digitally connected devices that can assist in tracking maintenance schedules, vehicle usage, service routes, and cut fleet downtime when dedicated assets are deployed for specialized chemical transportation
• Improve supply chain security and reduce fraud since all data is maintained and tracked through technology.
• Improved emergency response process as hardcopy documents are replaced with digital copies of MSDS. This allows emergency handling possible even at remote locations.
Conclusion
Real-time data, accuracy, relentless customer focus, process excellence, and analytical capability are important parameters of the effective supply chain. It is therefore imperative for companies to implement strategies to embrace and enhance digitalized supply chain platforms and interfaces to achieve this. As we progress into a digitized environment, we can expect improved operational efficiency, improved customer experience, safety in supply chain management, seamless and end-to-end visibility, improved supply chain security and improved emergency response process.
