Industry 4.0： Three Directions of Digital Supply Chain
Focus on cutting-edge scientific and technological innovation and upgrading of traditional industries
The Industrial 4.0 Revolution sweeping the world has affected almost every industry, including the supply chain management of all industries.
In the past, supply chain management was a headache for all industries, because the traditional supply chain involved a lot of fuzzy and inaccessible data, which swallowed up cost, time and patience like a "black hole". Industry 4.0 will give birth to a new digital supply chain and realize more complex and streamlined supply chain management.
Digital supply chain is an important direction of industrial solutions and business processes in the future, including not only logistics, warehousing, transportation, but also engineering, research and development, manufacturing and asset management.
With the application of many innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and blockchain in the supply chain, the traditional supply chain management is rapidly moving towards digitalization, intelligence and controllability.
1. Cross-platform asset tracking that connects everything
At present, GPS positioning is a mature technology with low price and low management cost, which is widely used in various fields. Through sensors connected to various assets or vehicles, the location and general time planning of assets can be obtained.
Enterprises can track assets through bar codes and tracking numbers, and know where products and goods are being shipped. However, this kind of tracking and monitoring is far from accurate, and it will still bring many problems and inconveniences.
For example, after shopping on the e-commerce platform, the logistics information shows that "the courier is delivering the goods", but we can’t know whether the courier will deliver it within the next hour or within three hours.
In the industrial field, this inaccurate or delayed logistics distribution will bring some confusion to the production of enterprises, and even cause the production line to stop. Especially for manufacturers who pursue zero inventory, zero inventory not only refers to the timely delivery of final products, but also includes the inventory management of raw materials and equipment needed for production.
Therefore, more accurate asset tracking technology will be an important direction of digital supply chain in the future. Hans Thalbauer, senior vice president of SAP, said, "We should not only create connections for goods, but also create connections for business partners. We need to connect not only suppliers, but also suppliers of suppliers. "
The future digital supply chain should not only connect all links in the supply chain, but also connect all factors that affect logistics distribution, such as weather, natural disasters, road infrastructure, regional economy and even political influence, so as to minimize risks.
For example, last year’s hurricane, which caused great damage to the American economy, affected the distribution of some suppliers’ goods, causing some automakers to shut down production. If we can get the news from the supply chain that "my supplier’s factory in Japan is affected by the earthquake and will stop production in the next two weeks", manufacturers can purchase products from suppliers in other parts of the world in time.
2. Timely production and forecast monitoring
As early as several decades ago, Toyota Motor Corporation initiated the concept of just in time to alleviate the problem of lack of cash, land and large inventory. Through the accurate management system, the response time of suppliers is shortened and the investment in process inventory is reduced.
But the basis of timely production is that all parts and raw materials must arrive on time. On the automobile assembly line, the shortage of any part will affect the normal production of the production line. If the distribution of parts is delayed, it may lead to product quality problems or even downtime; If the delivery is too early, the factory is not ready to receive it, which will increase the cost of inventory management.
In order to meet the production needs of large manufacturers, OEM will have strict delivery response time to ensure that parts can arrive at suppliers on time. However, this will bring great production pressure to suppliers. On the one hand, suppliers have to invest a lot of money in expedited transportation, and at the same time, in order to avoid the penalty of downtime caused by delayed transportation, suppliers must also maintain a certain amount of spare parts inventory.
Therefore, timely production can improve the production efficiency of OEM manufacturers, but it will lead to low efficiency of suppliers, thus increasing the cost of parts.
This requires the future digital supply chain to have the machine learning ability of real-time prediction. Through digital connection, it can realize predictive quality management, predictive manufacturing and predictive maintenance, improve the efficiency of production and distribution, and reduce costs.
3. Blockchain and traceability
The advantages of security, trust, traceability and controllability make blockchain one of the most potential new technologies. By creating a safe and transparent ledger system, all relevant stakeholders in the supply chain, such as manufacturers, retailers, logistics service providers and regulatory agencies, are brought into the same management platform, making the whole management process credible and transparent.
In recent years, many start-ups that use blockchain technology to reshape supply chain management have been born. At the same time, traditional logistics giants have also begun to explore the application path of blockchain.
For example, the shipping giant Maersk cooperated with IBM to develop the TradeLens blockchain platform, aiming at improving logistics efficiency and simplifying the documentation of global container transportation. After testing, the handling capacity of shipping documents is reduced by 10 times, and the transportation time is reduced by 40% on average. At present, nearly 100 partners around the world have joined the platform.
Through opening up, blockchain technology can effectively prevent price fraud, transportation delay and payment delay, eliminate middlemen and effectively reduce transaction costs.
In the industrial field, although the blockchain is still in the experimental and exploratory stage, once it is deeply integrated with industrial production, it will play an important role in future industrial production and digital supply chain.
In the future, all kinds of new technologies will allow us to look at every link of the whole supply chain more rationally from the digital point of view, and help us to continuously improve our production, analysis, maintenance and forecasting capabilities.
As Hans Thalbauer, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain and Internet of Things of SAP Company said, "This is a digital mirror. It is the digital twin of products, the twin of assets and a mirror of the world. This allows us to start the dynamic adjustment process. We hope to create a digital mirror image of the real world in this environment. "
This article first appeared on WeChat WeChat official account: Capital Lab. The content of the article belongs to the author’s personal opinion and does not represent Hexun.com’s position. Investors should operate accordingly, at their own risk.