Abstract
The supply chain is a concept that emerged after companies and industries realized that the flow of the product from the manufacturing point till it gets to the customer was quite crucial in achieving profits. This essay tackles this concept in detail, by defining a supply chain, and explaining how the internet of things has changed how it works.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Supply Chain after the Internet".
Introduction
The supply chain is a collective term for resources, activities, information, and people in a system involved in the movement of a service or product to a customer from a supplier and is very crucial. Any break in the chain affects the end product. Hence, every organization should plan its chain well. A supply chain involves collaboration and coordination of various partners, including suppliers, distributors, and manufacturers. This paper is going to discuss the Internet of Things and the impact it has had on supply chain management. Internet of things has different aspects that play a vital role in the impact it has had on supply chain management (Ben-Daya et al., 2017).
The scope of the Report
The report will start by looking at the history of supply chain and also give a brief description of the internet of thing and how it works. The focus will then be drawn on how the internet of things has revolutionized supply chain management and how supply chain changed after the internet focusing on manufacturing, logistics, and inventory. This will be followed by the outcome, and finally, a conclusion.
Supply Chain History
The supply chain is a field that has become increasingly important over the past century due to its relevance to manufacturing and logistics. It is a process that involves the delivery of a product from raw material to finished product to the customer despite the assortment complexity. It goes back to the 1990s when the phrase “supply chain” started to emerge due to the difficulties in handling materials and the beginning of global manufacturing (Janvi, 2017, para.3). The main obstacle was making a product and serving it to the right place at the right time. The impact that supply chain had on multiple industries has made companies recognize it is the key-goal of remaining competitive and improving profitability.
Internet of Things
The internet has been mostly the product of people. All the data, photos and content was created by people for people; this aspect is called the internet of people, and it has changed the world significantly. There is new internet evolving that will change the world again. It is about connecting things hence the name “Internet of Things.” The internet of things is a network that consists of physical components that are connected with electronics and software (Lu & Cecil, 2015, p.1). A simple example of these things is a smartphone. There are many sensors in a phone that it is difficult to imagine, it senses the location, how much distance traveled. It also senses the lightening in the room so it can set the lightening of the phone correctly and is capable of communicating in a wireless network. Big companies like Google and Apple are making considerable investments in the Internet of Things, for example, Apple Watch.
Internet of Things is Revolutionizing the Supply Chain
Internet of Things has a significant impact on almost everything. The question of importance, in this case, is how it affects the supply chain, and what benefits it brings to the industry. It is a new approach in supply chain field. To develop a digital product, increase the speed of creating and tracking this product and raise the efficiency, one needs a proficient supply chain system which can be entirely provided by using the Internet of Things. This technology enables supply chain visibility and booms it to a higher level regarding manufacturing and bringing an efficient yet affordable assets tracking that will ensure the service will arrive at the customer at the right time.
Supply Chain after the Internet
National strategies have smart manufacturing as a core goal. However, the challenge is that IoT is still in the process of revolution hence new possibilities are still coming up. Experts and stakeholders are yet to discover more likelihoods (Tao, 2017, p.1). Companies incur costs in efforts to secure inventories, track and store them. Mismanagement thus results in significant financial losses. IT experts can now set up websites and databases which users can access online making it very easy for a company to monitor its supply chain, and keep track of its orders and inventories. The Internet and the possibilities that come with it have reduced the manual work of traveling and taking stock, which enhances a smooth and fast flow of the whole process. However, it is crucial to address urgent issues like safety, due to the advent of cybercriminals. As such, there should be security measures in place to facilitate operations of the supply chain management system.
Manufacturing
Pre
Manufacturing is the creation of a product throughout machines or tools. Manufacturing processes have made remarkable changes over the last century. The beginning of machines manufacturing ensured the quality of product increased enormously without increasing the cost reducing it. Manufacturing has encountered three revolutions up until now, starting with the steam engine in the mid 19s, the second one was the first automation wave in the 1970s, and finally the mass production model at the beginning of the 20th century.
B.Post
The Internet of Things is the current manufacturing revolution that is called Smart Manufacturing. Making a massive shift to global manufacturing has yielded several benefits to the industry. Industry 4.0 was the most to benefit from (IoT), by providing big solutions for improvement, such as the Cyber-physical system and Cyber-physical system. The (CPS) is the connection between the real world and the virtual one, there are four types of connection in this system but the most and appealing one is the Cyber -to-Cyber connection, that will enable machines to work autonomously without the need for human assistance. This means more accurate work and precise information (Monostori et al.,2016). However, the CPPS system is more concerned about real-time data and Predictive Maintenance, if a manufacturer can predict when a machine will stop running, then he can schedule the ideal time for maintenance to avoid downtime making the process to last longer and reducing the cost of maintenance furthermore operating more efficiently.
Logistics
Pre
Logistics is the control of the flow of merchandise from the starting point of creating to the delivery with a goal to meet consumer specification. The term logistics is spreading out through supply chain specialists. Some people confuse it with the supply chain. A supply chain involves the making of a product and delivering it to the customer, whereas logistics is the movement of equipment in the supply chain. The Logistics industry was always known as the transportation of goods by truck but has changed due to some inventions such as GPS and mobile computers. These discoveries have changed the field of logistics radically.
Post
The Internet of things is the new technology that is changing logistics, not only does it help in assets tracking, but also it can track petroleum, natural gases, and even water, which mean that it can play a huge part in preventing any natural crisis. The Retail industry is equipped for a change, due to IoT systems that are helping retailers to increase their operations efficiency through using RFID labels to improve the productivity of the supply chain. However, IoT is most beneficial in monitoring with the use of sensors. Another benefit that Iot provides is in the last mile delivery, by placing sensors inside the package so that they can send notifications to the consumer and letting the delivery man skip that package leading to optimization in daily collection routes. Moreover, creating sensors that can sense when was the package placed in the mailbox and measure the humidity inside it. (Macaulay et al., 2015, pp. 14-17)
Inventory Management
Pre
The Supply chain industry faces multiple challenges to achieve good quality product, one of the leading challenges is inventory management, suppose that there is a company and it must have a storage capacity, then it can store raw material, and finished product, the organization of this raw material, is called inventory management. As aforementioned, the primary purpose is to attain the level of customer satisfaction, by managing inventory it can easily be accomplished. Inventory management has got several industries attention due to its reliability and effectiveness on the supply chain. (Zhang et al., 2016, p.1).
Post
With the Internet of Things, inventory management is attracting more companies by proposing a smart inventory system that is self-adaptive and can provide support in three different aspects: environmental recognition, decision making, and knowledge merging. It first starts with environment recognition throughout an approach called neural network; the first task is to look where a node is circulated, this recognition consists of two parts, detect all possible advantages and then minimize the size to a logical number. It then goes to knowledge merging by selecting the elements that consist of confliction to avoid defective products, after that, a decision must be taken, and it can be done either automatically or manually. Finally, the self-adaptive process begins, and it consists of two parts: it initiates by identifying the base weight of knowledge merging that has been done earlier, then it determines the time needed to repeat this local knowledge bases (Zhang et al., 317)
Outcome
The Internet of Things has broad applications and in supply chain management has had a positive outcome such as increased efficiency and a reduced amount of workforce (Ben-Daya et al., 2017). All these save the company money that would have been used in expenditure. Hence, the company enjoys increased profits. The quick flow of information in the supply chain has proved quite useful for businesses as customers’ demands and needs are easily satisfied. Fundamental factors are considered by the neural network ensuring the product is of good quality.
Conclusion
The effect of the internet in the running of daily operations has primarily had positive effects. However, if wrongly utilized, it can have devastating effects. It is, therefore, essential to come up with a system that enhances the security of the supply chain management systems to secure the inventory and protect the company from any losses. It has revolutionized the supply chain systems, and its efficiency is evident in how well businesses are now meeting customer needs by ensuring that the right products or services get to the customer. Experts should thus find out more ways on how to increase the efficiency in future and automate the systems fully.
- Ben-Daya, M., Hassini, E., & Bahroun, Z. (2017). Internet of things and supply chain management: A literature review. International Journal of Production Research, Retrieved from doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2017.1402140.
- Lu, Y., & Cecil, J. (2016). An Internet of Things (IoT)-based collaborative framework for advanced manufacturing. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 84, 1141-1152. DOI: 10.1007/s00170-015-7772-0.
- Macaulay, J., Buckalew, L., & Chung, G. (2015). IoT in Logistics. Internet of things in Logistics. 1-26. Published by DHL customer solutions and Innovations, Troisdorf, Germany.
- Tao, F., Cheng, J., & Qi, Q. (2017). IIHub: An industrial Internet-of-Things Hub towards smart manufacturing based on the cyber-physical system. Manuscript No. TII-17-1716, IEEE, 1-9. Doi: 10.1109/TII.2017.2759178.
- Zhang, L., Alharbe, N., & Atkins, A. (2016). An IoT application for inventory management with a self-adaptive decision model. International Conference on Internet of Things, 317-322. Retrieved from 10.1109/iThings-GreenCom-CPSCom-SmartData.2016.77.
