Tag: AI

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is an exciting new technology that has profound implications and applications in Supply Chain.

Rise of the Warehouse Robots!

Disruptive Warehouse Technologies for Any Company!

Customer expectations are changing as new sales outlets are being used. With the application of social media, omni-channel and e-commerce customers now have more price options, selections, delivery methods and shopping experiences. The ability of a business to keep the customer satisfied greatly depends on fulfillment capabilities, such as with the use of warehouse robots.

Progressive businesses have realized the critical nature an operations strategy has on designing a working supply chain. Combining distribution and fulfillment operations into a single facility has become the base of the supply chain network, as they allow a single location to stock a vast number of products and service multiple channels.

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4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Selecting Supply Chain Technology!

Supply Chain Investment Challenges – Real and Imagined!

There are thousands of supply chain technology vendors in the market today, and many companies claim their system is the best-of-the-best.

How do you truly know which systems are the best, and what can you do to ensure the selected supply chain technology does not become a money pit for your organization?

The answers to these questions lie in understanding the top pitfalls to avoid when selecting systems and new technologies for use in your organization.

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How AI and Tracking Tools Are Transforming Customer Experience in E-Commerce!

Truck Tracking Guide: How to Track Your Truck!

You know that small restless feeling when a package hasn’t shown up yet? You try to keep busy, but somehow you still end up checking your inbox, hitting refresh on the tracking page, maybe even sneaking a look out the window. It’s that mix of hope and impatience we all know too well.

I’ve felt it plenty of times. That’s why I use InstantParcels it helps track shipments globally in one place, so the wait doesn’t feel like guessing anymore. You see where things are, and somehow that makes the whole waiting part a little easier to take.

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How Will AI Affect the Supply Chain?

Harnessing the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Supply Chain!

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping the landscape of supply chain management. As businesses deal with today’s global economy, using AI is a big deal.

This article looks at how AI will affect supply chain management. It talks about the good things AI can do, the problems it can cause, and how businesses can get ready for this big change.

AI is poised to revolutionize how supply chains operate, ultimately contributing to improved efficiency, cost reduction, and competitive advantage.

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How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Change Decision Making!

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Over the Next Half Decade!

From The Terminator to Blade Runner, pop culture has always leaned towards a chilling depiction of artificial intelligence (AI) and our future with AI at the helm. Recent headlines about Facebook panicking because their AI bots developed a language of their own have us hitting the alarm button once again. Should we really feel unsettled with an AI future?

News flash: that future is here. If you ask Siri, the helpful assistant who magically lives inside your phone, to read text messages and emails to you, find the nearest pizza place or call your mother for you, then you’ve made AI a part of your everyday life.

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AI + Data = Supply Chain Risk Management!

Is Artificial Intelligence a Major Draw or Turn Off for Customers?

I feel you.

I was there.

In the exact same position, you’re in now.

A cynic. A skeptic. A person, utterly exhausted with seeing those two letters: AI.

As we see from Deloitte’s CPO Survey in 2018, AI is only fully deployed in 2% of procurement organizations and is far from making any real impact at scale within the digital ecosystems procurement teams are so eagerly trying to build. To top it off, there’s only 27% percent of procurement leaders considering AI/Cognitive technology, and 55% who haven’t considered it at all.

Cut to 2019, Deloitte published its newest CPO Survey where they found that 81% of chief procurement officers with fully implemented solutions in the space of Supply Chain Risk & Compliance Management aren’t satisfied with their solutions.

81%.

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How AI and the IoT Can Change Transportation Management!

The Top 5 Impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Logistics!

Analysts predict that by 2020, 75% of new cars will feature IoT connectivity. The percentage increase describes consumer applications, but the idea of connected vehicles should garner interest from other sectors such as shipping, logistics, and transportation management.

Leaders in these industries would be wise to plan for a future where AI and the IoT transform transportation management.

Here are five possible applications to consider:

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What is Big Data?

5 Seismic Shifts in Supply Chain Technology!

I remember manually plugging 16kB (that’s right “kilobyte”) memory chips into an original IBM Personal Computer.  The crunching sound they made was unforgettable.  I was ecstatic that I had increased the total memory to 128kB, and then to 256kB … WOW!   At that time that was a lot of memory.  Who could ever need to store that much data?  That was “Big Data“.

Let’s fast forward to today.  The memory on your handheld smartphone and other devices is measured in Gigabytes (GB).  Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of information are generated every day.  Every move, every transaction, every image, every event and every location in everyone’s  lives are recorded.

That is Big Data!

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The Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Over the Next Half Decade!

The Top 5 Impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Logistics!

Why half? For those who may find awkward the reference to “half a decade” and not the “next decade” here is why: AI is evolving at such a staggering rate that it is simply not possible to foresee the impact of Artificial Intelligence in 10 years’ time.

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Supply Chain Investment Challenges – Real and Imagined!

The Digital Supply Chain Road is Full of Potholes, Construction and Accidents!

Everywhere you turn there is talk of a lot of very exciting technologies requiring Supply Chain investment.  The Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), Drones and Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligent Analytics are front and centre.

And all of these technologies have applicability for the Supply Chain in every business and in every industry around the world.   The Digital Supply Chain vision is within our line of sight.

But most companies are still working with the same, manual, non-automated Supply Chains that they have had for at least the last decade.  And they will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.  They are faced with challenges which are going to impede technology investments to advance their Supply Chains going forward.

What are these Supply Chain challenges?

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Artificial Intelligence in E-Commerce! (Infographic)

What is Big Data?

The convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in E-Commerce is underway.  Further it has the potential for exponential dissemination across the Retail landscape in the future along with expansion of it’s applications and capabilities.

From playing a role in managing the Customer Experience to providing Buying, Replenishment and Fulfillment capabilities to analyzing the ever growing expanse of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay in Retail.

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Are We Facing the End of Supply Chain Management?

Imagining the Supply Chain of the Future!

A new article in Harvard Business Review has been generating some automation-related controversy in the Supply Chain Community, as well as lots of buzz and interesting conversation. Naturally, we want to weigh in and the end of Supply Chain Management.

Titled, “The Death of Supply Chain Management,” the article discusses the way that automation, AI and big data are transforming the industry.

It raises the alarm that the function will soon cease to exist, only to – as these “X is dead“ articles often end up doing – assert that it will still exist, just in a very different form.

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The Top 5 Impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Logistics!

How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Change Decision Making!

There’s no other way to describe it: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the world of logistics. That may seem like a cliché, or hype, or buzz, but it is true.

The tech is fundamentally changing the way packages move around the world, from predictive analytics to autonomous vehicles and robotics. Here are the top five ways in which Artificial Intelligence is transforming the logistics industry as we know it:

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Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing!

The Guinness Book of World Records for 3D Printing!

Although additive manufacturing and 3D Printing for both plastic and metal materials has been around for years, the investment, developments, breadth of applications, adoption rate, and beneficial case studies are expanding at an extremely rapid rate.

New processes, materials, devices, design applications, are emerging every day. Now, there are cloud sites that store portfolios of designs, much like Pandora does for music. All of this is creating an amazing amount of opportunity creating more efficient supply chains, new product types, de-centralized manufacturing schemes, and easier approaches to mass-customization.

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Cyber Security: The Weakest Link is Your Biggest Risk!

4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Selecting Supply Chain Technology!

We all know how important cybersecurity is now that technology powers commerce in such a significant way. But if you perform work as part of a supply chain, you know that the stakes are especially high with cyber security the weakest link.

Given that you’re part of a network of providers, vendors, transporters and managers, the impact of the weakest link in the supply chain cybersecurity “chain of custody” can be significant.

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