Supply Chain in 2021
2020 has been a year where Supply Chain got into much significance and many companies realised the importance of having not only a robust supply chain but also be future ready and adapt more and more technology. 2021 in my view, will see a lot of new developments in the supply chain. Let’s look at a few of the expected changes which will bring a revolution in supply chain and logistics.
Resilient & Agile Supply Chains:
Resilient supply chains are the future. This is defined by its capacity for resistant and recovery. This means that they have the capability to resist or even avoid the impact of a supply chain disruption as well as ability to quickly recover from a disruption. Disruptions can be sudden market trends, pandemic, unexpected competition, or rapid changing customer behaviours. These are built with modern technologies that allow them to forecast, anticipate and respond quickly to whatever risks or opportunities come in the future. Resilient Supply chains work by understanding and leveraging data, diversifying suppliers and manufacturing partners, implementing capacity and inventory buffers. Benefits of such supply chains are enhanced productivity, efficiency and reduced risks.
Cold Chain Logistics:
Cold Chain Logistics is getting more priority globally. Organisations, airports, ports are working on getting ready for ensuring we transport and carry COVID-19 vaccines to every remote part of the globe. This investment in infrastructure and new learnings will be a great development going forward as the cold chain needs much more attention. With better cold chain logistics, we will be able to have a sustainable and agile process for Vaccines, Pharma, Biological Samples, Perishables including food and vegetables.
Digital Supply Chain Management:
Digital Supply Chain management means supply chain management enabled by digital technologies. This will have the ability to impact business outcomes directly through core digital interventions to improve visibility, minimize cycle times and optimize operations. Digitisation will help us to determine the right levels of cost to serve, forecasting accuracies, optimised cash conversion cycles. This will contribute towards better customer delight. Going forward digital technologies supply chain will give rise to new roles including understanding and interacting with complex data. With technology allowing companies to create better forecasts, streamline operations, and break down departmental silos, organisations can longer consider digital transformation as optional.
Artificial Intelligence:
AI is now seen everywhere and its emergence is faster than thought. More and more AI involvement in the supply chain will happen in 2021. This would effectively not only help in autonomous processes, efficiency, predictability but all cut down costs due to less human involvement. Higher quality of work in the supply chain will be the result of the AI. Artificial intelligence will revolutionize supply chains in ways that haven’t even been thought of yet.
Robot Automation:
Robots have already made their inroads into warehousing and logistics. Going forward, we will see more and more robot involvement in the supply chain across industries. We will see robots not only doing difficult jobs, in warehouse operations, manufacturing, replacing some workers as well as they doing deliveries and a new dimension in the last mile. We used to see in movies doing this and now it’s a reality. Flipkart has been banking on automation to create a robust process handling million of shipments which is in line with Amazon automation. The below video can help you understand the importance and benefits of automation. You can also research amazon, alibaba too.
https://www.supplychaintoday.com/how-flipkart-is-using-automation-to-deliver-your-products-on-time/
Drones:
We can now see drones being used globally for various works. We also see drones being used by few companies for last mile delivery. You will find them soon at more places especially for the last mile in the coming year either its delivery of packages or delivery of pizza. Drones will soon be a $100 billion industry. Military drones have been used for years and delivery drones will be here soon. UPS tests residential drone delivery. Residential drone delivery could completely change the last mile. Many companies are investing heavily in drone technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5hQHBNpd7s&feature=emb_title
Self-driving, Autonomous vehicles & Trucking 4.0:
“Self-driving vehicles, automatically choosing the most efficient route… Artificial Intelligence will dramatically improve logistics.” ~Dave Waters
We will witness autonomous self-driving semi-trucks, cars and this may become the future of trucking in the Supply chain soon. We will also see more and more electric vehicles being used all across. Self-driving vehicles as known to us will choose the most efficient routes resulting in an efficient, cost effective and carbon free supply chain. This is the start of Trucking 4.0. In this decade trucking and logistics will be an ecosystem of autonomous vehicles directed by a digitized supply chain, combining driverless, cabless trucks and delivery hubs by robots.
IoT & Blockchain:
Block chain has its own importance. It will be more and more adopted as it plays a significant role in transparency if adopted in the supply chain. In actual sense, having an autonomous supply chain is where you need to have the fusion of IoT, AI, Big Data, Machine learning and blockchain technologies.
SCM a career option:
We are witnessing that more and more people now are keen to learn supply chain. Many organisations and business schools have started focusing on this as an important subject. I see more and more students choose to build their career in SCM. SCM’s growing importance and companies understanding the importance of the supply chain to their business will increase.
Quality, Kaizen and Gemba Walk:
Continuous improvement in the supply chain is imperative and organisations have to work on this. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy and means “change for the better” or “continuous improvement.” The Gemba Walk is walking around where the work is being done to understand what is going on and seeing how to help. It isn’t about seeing who is working, it is about seeing how you can make the workers’ life better so that they can be more efficient. Few call this as Management by Walking Around (MBWA).
Stronger eCommerce platforms & logistics:
By now everyone has come on the ecommerce platforms and hyperlocal logistics. They would continue to have more focus on this and invest on technology and omnichannel presence for their products.
Business Contingency Plans:
This pandemic taught everyone that you should have business contingency plans. This would continue to be one key strategy for supply chain, scalable processes, labour shortages(migrant) and warehouse perspectives keeping in mind the wide fluctuation demands in few sectors. This also meant you have a very strong vendor management and relationship. WFH will continue and may become a norm for few employees.
So, for resilient supply chains and customer focused supply chains we all will witness the above improvements in supply chain in the coming years and will bring a revolutionary change in supply chain. Lets all get ready for the new developments and a better supply chain and logistics tomorrow.
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