Have you also faced the issue of your local grocery store being out of the basic ingredients of your favorite food? We have all faced this issue in the wake of Covid-19 when the supply chain was broken. Companies are looking for better ways to make it right.
Supply chain automation is a game-changer as the industry needs to optimize the workflow to maintain the edge and competition in the market.
What Is Supply Chain Automation?
It is a term to define the method of systemizing the workflow delivery or supply chain to improve the whole process. It uses the centralizing technology that manages the complexities of the operation and process.
Automating some or the whole process of the supply chain can improve the various aspects of the process like reducing the redundant operations, manual efforts to be minimized.
It also increases certain aspects like the efficiency of the process, it makes the operation reliable while increasing productivity as well.
How to Improve The Operation of the Supply Chain?
To stay competitive and relevant in the cut-throat market of today, the companies need to keep on the improvement and innovation going on. Also staying ahead might not be possible for all but staying updated is the need of the hour.
Staying updated can be done with the help of digital transformation and by investing in a technology that will enable you to improve your process so that you can provide the best experience to your customers. Some ways can help in improving the operation and process.
Benefits of Supply Chain Automation in Manufacturing
The automation of the supply chain will bring value through a reduction in the overall cost of operations and increasing the revenue and the potential up-gradation. Below you can find some of the benefits of automation in the supply chain and its operation.
- Improvement in timeline
- Minimizing the operational cost
- Improvement in productivity
- Increasing the capacity
- Narrowing down the human errors
- Improving the quality and accuracy
- Improvement in compliance
- Integration with large suppliers
- Real-time data and information processing
- Accurate planning and forecast
What Are Types of Automation In the Supply Chain Industry?
Back Office Automation
Several tasks can be automated like robotic process automation, workload automation, task automation, and machine learning.
The back office employees do not work in direct contact with the customers neither they are the primary contact point but a majority of the work is done through the back-office staff only.
It is the first type of supply chain automation that will help in speeding up the process further. Various documents are needed for the supply chain like delivery orders, receipts, shipping labels, etc, the back office automation helps in the generation of these documents and storing this data that can be pulled at any time if needed.
This helps and smoothens the process and creates convenience for the customers who can track the movement of their shipments.
Transport Automation
By transport automation, the companies have found an alternative of human truck drivers. This enables the use of autonomous trucks and drones can be used for the transport of the supplies in the network.
For example, Amazon is working toward the substantial use of autonomous trucks by investing in market research about the same. The drones are also gaining momentum as this is another automation that is low-cost, autonomous, and has no human-contact delivery.
Warehouse Automation
This will help to leave behind the issue of shortage. This will automate the tasks that are repetitive like inventory management and heavy material handling.
This will allow the potential for more productivity, the safety of the warehouse employees, lower cost, avoiding human errors.
The robots for warehouse automation come with added intelligence, guidance, and sensory detection and awareness.
What Are The Benefits of Supply Chain Automation?
There are a lot of processes that are happening simultaneously and if the process gets centralized it will help in smooth processing in other departments and processes. These are the real benefits of automating the process of the supply chain and bringing all the tasks to one single platform from where employees and workers can access the information without hassle. Some of the benefits are:
Tracking Products: This provides a better preview of the delivery dates and delays, it also helps in accessing details of past deliveries. It shows the weather reports and processes customer feedback for a more cohesive process.
Efficient Payment Method: The automation increases the speed of the tasks resulting in quicker processing of the payment. The automation mechanism also works to generate the invoice and also checks if it is paid or not.
Managing Data: It helps in optimizing the works and efforts done by the employees while reducing the error margins and clerical mistakes. The supply chain can keep on improving when it meets the demands of faster consumer delivery and real-time tracking while giving additional insights through the information. The automation simplifies the procedure and reduces errors and decreases the risks.
Conclusion
By automating the logistics network, the companies will be able to reduce the errors that interfere with the process. The automation may be different for each process and may vary in size, functions, complexities, cost, and devices.
There are several types of automation like back office, transport, and warehouse automation. To automate the back office companies can use software and robotic machines for the redundant procedure.
To automate transport, companies are investing in resources like autonomous delivery trucks and drones. By supply chain automation the process will become more sophisticated and will require less supervision at each level. It will also make the entire process cost-effective.