WHAT CAN BOTS DO FOR YOU?

The dream of an autonomous supply chain

- Damien Martin

What if your supply chain ran itself, with little to no human intervention needed? Perhaps supply chain managers could stake out a plan and set it in motion, with tech handling the rest. Or maybe the tech could handle the planning part, too, with managers approving or rejecting big decisions and automating everything else? What would it free your organization up to do? As the dream of a fully autonomous supply chain inches closer to possibility, these are questions worth asking.

THE TECH

In years past, the idea of an autonomous supply chain has been a pipe dream. So what's changed? The growth of 5G, cloud computing, Al, and the Industrial loT have made an automated network of machines that can communicate quickly with each other a reality. Now, humans are still needed to plan, execute, and supervise operations, but the tech is moving quickly as more organizations digitize their supply chains on the fly.

There are quite a few aspects of supply chains that can be automated today. Robotic process automation already handles lots of repetitive tasks flawlessly and collects important data, but there is room for the robots to operate more independently than they currently do.

Something that can be fully automated today is logistics planning. "Autonomous planning enables ongoing, machine-supported decision making in every part of the planning value chain, with planners intervening only to manage exceptions. In other words, the machines do what they do best - crunching data and applying advanced analytics - thus freeing up planners' time for higher-value activities," McKinsey analysts wrote.