The supply chain world of tomorrow will be leaner, faster and self-organized. For the next 5-10 years, the design of supply chain is critical. No two supply chain are the same. There are 2 game changers that we see on 2 fronts for companies. They are namely for (1) Cost saving and (2) Sales increase. For cost saving and security, it would be pairing Blockchain with IOT. For Sales increase and customer satisfaction, would be Machine Learning with Human guidance. Block-chain in the supply chain is presumed to be an ultimate solution for visibility and transparency. The ability to track purchase orders, record production activities, link physical goods to IOT devices for instant data, and sharing information with other partners along the supply chain helps to reduce cost substantially by eliminating many manual processes. In additional, the ability to allow consumers to authenticate products further create value for brand owners. Machine learning’s most significant contributions is to provide companies with better insights into how supply chain performance can be improved. Product Sales can be increased with the use of machine learning-based planning and optimization techniques by ensuring products are made available for consumers whenever they need. Inventory reductions can also be reduced in the process. Abnormalities in supply chain performance, cost and potential fraud can be anticipated before they occur. Furthermore, machine learning does provide insights for automation which is the key for business scaling. Many supply chain challenges are time, cost and resource limitation. Machine learning is an ideal technology to solve them.
However, whatever the game changers solutions are, they are dependent on 2 critical characteristics for success: Technology Accessibility and Collaboration among people who are using.
