Today’s businesses have increasingly become fast-paced. Highly demanding customers seek instant gratification on one side, and businesses, in a quest to do more with the finite resources on hand, try to optimize and accelerate their supply chain, on the other side. All this means not just larger volumes to process, but also a significant increase in the number of issues warehouse and logistics management needs to deal within a day. Side-by-side, competitive pressures means squeezed margins, leaving warehouses without the luxury of spending more to cater to the increased workload.
Logistics is a precision business, where success depends on making accurate moves at the right time. A high level of contextual awareness backed up by highly optimized processes are the essential ingredients of success. Efficiency is the end result, which comes as a result of such heightened levels of workflow optimization, allowing companies to streamline their logistical operations right from its core.
The technological development particularly in the past two decades is enabling logistics industry to continually evolve. Logistics, supply chain, and parcel delivery are at the forefront of tech adoption. History reveals that the companies which fail to adopt latest trends in logistics cease to exist because competitors outperform them. Although technology brings a range of capabilities to this industry, yet some technologies and approaches would be the key players in the upcoming times. Supply chains around the world are being transformed. External pressures, technology trends and internal evolution are prompting companies to reevaluate their network to determine how their future supply chain should be structured, both in terms of capacity and capabilities. There are following four main categories of broad ongoing trends that will impact the supply chain of the future.
- Emerging technologies
- Focus on supply chain visibility
- Sharing economy
- Evolving customer channels
Following are the five most notable technologies capable of refining logistics operations:
RFID Systems
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in logistics has potential particularly in route optimization, and the real-time tracking of goods. When effectively integrated, RFID systems can provide precise location and quantity data in real-time. For instance, tagging trucks, pallets, and inventory provide multi-lateral views of what is happening across the supply chain. The importance of knowing exactly where a specific truck is at any given moment can allow a logistics company to be more proactive, to change a delivery route given unpredictable events such as accidents and weather.
Smart warehouse management
The single biggest task for warehouse executives is determining fleet deployment, matching fleet deployment with cargo based on loading capacities, fuel consumption, and more. Another critical task is monitoring fleet movement. Automating these functions, by using the latest software to intelligently route different data sets and data streams improve accuracy, leaving the managers free to focus on other things where their core competencies and interventions would be more productive. Such warehouse automation solutions improve the efficiency, accuracy, and velocity of warehouse operations manifold.
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Collaboration for outsourcing
Using common citizens as workers is not the only choice when aiming to optimizing supply chain and short distance delivery orders. Another option is to collaborate with competitors in a mutually beneficial way so that both stakeholders generate value. Companies can develop partnerships with delivery and logistics businesses operating in the same region to generate a marketplace of workers. The workers would be getting more orders, and hence remain satisfied since they would be registered to work at more than one company.
Omnichannel and last mile delivery
Because of e-commerce and omnichannel trends, the last-mile evolution of shipping methods has increased the complexity of the supply chain. And further, no longer is one-way logistics enough to compete. One such example is Walmart which is approaching the challenge of last-mile logistics in a uniquely alternate fashion. They have implemented an employee drop-off system, incentivizing employees to drop off packages as they travel home at the end of a shift.
Blockchain
One of the most long standing challenges in logistics industry is the time consumption in verification of transactions. Apart from distributors and retailers, regulatory bodies are also the stakeholders. Every transaction has to be verified at multiple steps. Research confirms that the time wasted in waiting for authentication is more than every other part in logistics management cycle. Fortunately, Blockchain – one of the emerging trends in logistics – presents an immensely promising solution. This technology based on distributed ledger stores transaction records in an immutable scheme. In essence, a record once stored cannot be deleted or modified.
Today, the logistics industry looks entirely different than it did 10 years ago, the question now becomes what will it look like in another 10 years? Market trends, such as those outlined above, are going to continue to impact the logistics sector well into the future. However, the success of trend-shaping nascent technologies requires that they are integrated with existing solutions and infrastructure. Businesses can then create a next-generation stack that leverages previous technology investments while incubating big data, IoT, and omnichannel solutions.
[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]The writer is a Karachi based freelance columnist and is a banker by profession. He could be reached on Twitter @ReluctantAhsan[/box]