The Effects of Technology on Supply Chain Management

It is no doubt that technology is changing all aspects of the world drastically. One aspect of the world that has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades due to technology is the business field. With more efficient ways of doing certain tasks and calculating data, businesses are saving time and money by adapting to technology. This week, I learned a lot about how technology is expected to revolutionize supply chain management over the next few years.

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Supply chain management has many new aspects of technology including mobile computing, analytics, and cloud services. These types of technology are helpful for companies because they save the company time and money, and they are more likely to be accurate than if people were completing the tasks.  Technologies like these are extremely helpful with asset tracking. One piece of technology used to track assets are active and passive RFID tags. These tags provide data on items that they are attached to. These trackers are connected to the internet and use long-range networks or Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) to let companies track items throughout journeys. According to Business Insider, there are also satellite trackers, Bluetooth tags, and near-field communication (NFC) tags that complete the same types of tasks as RFID tags. All of these tools have proven to be very helpful for companies and it is likely that they will be used more and more in the future.

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These types of technologies are already being used by companies and businesses across the United States of America. The author of an article found at Business Insider, explains, "In a recent study, GT Nexus and Capgemini found that 70% of retail and manufacturing companies have already started a digital transformation project in logistics and supply chain operations". This means that these technologies are already widely used. These types of technologies are also expected to become more and more common. The author of the article found at the hyperlink above also states, "Delivery company DHL and tech giant Cisco estimated that Internet of Things technologies such as asset tracking solutions could have an impact of more than $1.9 trillion in the supply chain and logistics sector". This is a massive amount of money that would be impacting the supply chain and logistics fields. Hopefully these types of technologies will be extremely helpful to companies, consumers, and the economy as a whole as they continue to grow.
-Brianna