Supply Chain Dominance of China

A “Made in China” label has always been problematic in the U.S. In the early years of globalization, companies worried that customers would see Chinese goods as inferior in quality and stay away from it. Political leaders, meanwhile, worried that the sudden ubiquity of the label would expose the scale of the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. These concerns were more than offset by what Chinese manufacturing brought to the table: For price-conscious shoppers, it meant a new golden age of consumption. For companies, outsourcing often meant staggering profits. Bilateral trade allowed both countries to focus on their comparative advantages: China became “the world’s factory.” The U.S. focused more resources on the cutting edge. But the original concerns never went away. Rather, as middle-class wages in the U.S. stagnated, an anti-globalization backlash began to brew. And as China grew richer and more assertive in the pursuit of its core interests, a “Made in China” label began to spark new concerns. U.S. businesses chafed at China’s use of state funding, state-backed technology theft, protectionist trade barriers, and its diplomatic muscle to capture markets and develop home-grown competitors in advanced sectors. U.S. security officials started to worry about things like Chinese telecoms gear being used to spy on Americans or cripple essential networks. The Pentagon began to wonder if China was using U.S. tech to alter the military balance of power. The U.S. public began to wonder if buying from China meant entrenching a dictatorship, funding Uighur concentration camps, and empowering a military rival bent on overturning the U.S.-led order.

The COVID-19 pandemic merely poured fuel on the fire. It underscored the risks of having so many supply chains concentrated in one place. It also sparked a surge in anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S. Thus, the buzzword in Washington these days is “decoupling.” The U.S. government is urging U.S. companies to leave China for good — and rolling out a mix of sticks and carrots to encourage them to do so. Disentangling the U.S. and Chinese economies will be a messy and painful process, at best. Simply put, China has made itself indispensable to global supply chains. And its advantages aren’t going away. To understand why to consider what goes into making one of the U.S.’ most iconic products: the iPhone. China’s first advantage is the staggering depth of its labour pool. It’s no longer just about low-skill labourers willing to toil away in sweatshops, either. Chinese universities pump out more than nine times the number of STEM graduates each year than the U.S. The foremost reason why Apple doesn’t make its phones in the U.S. isn’t wages; it’s the reality that there aren’t enough U.S. engineers to meet the company’s production needs. China’s second advantage is its tight integration with a vast ecosystem of suppliers — most of them in East Asia — that’s needed to produce something as complicated as the iPhone at scale. In other words, an iPhone has microchips from Taiwan, camera technology from Japan, flash memory from South Korea — plus a zillion other components made in and around China. Apple needs these to be able to ensure delivery of such components in vast quantities on incredibly tight production schedules, so geographic proximity matters. And China is peerless when it comes to providing the infrastructure required to make it all happen.

An estimated five million jobs in China are dependent on Apple’s supply chain alone. A single factory where iPhones are made employees nearly 250 thousand people — larger than all but 83 U.S. cities. So Chinese provincial and local governments, locked in a zero-sum competition with one another to attract big foreign firms, are both incentivized and empowered by Beijing to move entire neighbourhoods seemingly overnight to build whatever they need. Finally, the lure of China’s consumer market compels foreign firms to put up with all sorts of headaches and do whatever is necessary to stay in Beijing’s good graces. While much of China is still very poor, nearly 200 million Chinese people had more than $16,000 in disposable income last year. This was more than double the number just a decade ago. If — and this is a big if — China can avoid an economic collapse, Chinese consumption will quite likely become the foremost driver of the global economy within the next two decades.

It’s no surprise, then, that in 2019, more than 17 percent of Apple’s revenues came from China — and this was a down year due to the trade war. To stay out of the U.S.-China crossfire and make their supply chains more resilient to disruption, many companies and their suppliers are pursuing what is known as “China plus one” strategies — building redundant supply chain links in alternative low-cost manufacturing hubs. Even before the pandemic, Apple, for example, was reportedly mulling moving between 15-30 percent of its hardware production to places like Vietnam, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and Malaysia But no country, or even combination of countries, can replicate China’s advantages altogether. Thus, companies are reluctant to leave. The U.S. and other Western governments have good strategic and economic reasons to at least try to make them reconsider. They can use tools like tariffs, subsidies, and regulatory controls to alter companies’ cost calculations — even if these invariably risk doing more harm than good to U.S. interests. And the growing risks of things like nationalist boycotts and government coercion in China will make foreign firms more willing to pull up stakes. Just don’t expect a mass exodus — or for “Made in China” to disappear from American shelves for good.

 

Reference:

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/category/regional-directory/south-asia/

https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/12/opinion-apple-gone-wrong-china/

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Chinas-supply-chain-cities-in-apparel-Source-David-Barboza-In-roaring-China-sweaters_fig3_228225090

http://www.supplychain247.com/topic/tag/Tariffs/P75

https://siteselection.com/investor-watch/covid-19-suffocating-the-global-medical-supply-chain-while-breathing-life-into-its-future.cfm#gsc.tab=0

 

 How digital technologies transform Supply Chain?

Today digital technologies are transforming the supply chain, benefiting everyone from small farmers in Africa to buyers of diamond rings. For smallholders in developing countries, the inability to hold a record of transactions often makes it impossible to get good access to credit, exposing them to predatory lenders. But blockchain technology might improve this situation.

In Zambia, software company BenQ has joined drinks company AB InBev to give cassava and barley farmers a record which is accessible of all the sales to their company through mobile phone. This enables them to build an account history, which enables them to secure loans and win contracts. Digital technology can also allow corporate buyers and consumers to discover more about the sustainability and the ethics of their purchases. If a ledger uses blockchain sensors and scanning technologies to track and authenticate the origin of seven types of valuable assets, including diamonds, wine, and works of art it will be a benefit to them. The company uses a digital ledger to see the assets at every stage in the supply chain. And works with certification houses to give assets, such as diamonds, and each diamond is as unique as a snowflake, a digital thumbprint or authentication.

Meanwhile, IBM's Food Trust initiative uses the internet of things, artificial intelligence and blockchain to capture and share information along the supply chain. This can reduce food waste and quickly identify the source of any contamination. And means recalls are much easier to manage. And to tackle problems such as deforestation, the sustainability consultancy the South Pole taps into a range of tools, including big data and satellite mapping. The company can assist climate risk and how the activities of companies, governments, and others are affecting the world's forests. The goal is then to reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chains.

One digital technology at a time, the supply chain is becoming ever more efficient and transparent.

References:

https://www.pwc.in/consulting/digital-transformation/supply-chain-transformation.html

https://www.peerbits.com/blog/drive-supply-chains-technologies-of-2018.html

https://blogs.oracle.com/scm/preparing-your-business-for-the-digital-supply-chain

 The greatest challenge of this era: Logistics of COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19, a virus orders of magnitude smaller than a grain of dust, has turned everyday life on earth into something deeply unknown. In the ten or so months after it first appeared, the epidemic settled at a constant rate of killing 5,000 people per day, or almost a million. The global economy has wreaked havoc, plunging the global into the worst economic recession since World War Two. Potentially, we are reaching the beginning of the end, meaning we may be at the end of the middle now. We are possibly far from halfway through the pandemic in terms of time, but the gradual deterioration in dreadfulness is potentially on the horizon. The culmination of this epidemic will take much longer than the beginning. This is because there is a vaccine coming. There has been a time of uncertainty previously as to whether a successful vaccine will be made, which is not a sure shot, but all signs currently show that it is indeed coming.

Right now, in September 2020, the late-October, early-November timeline is the focus of all attention. This is the first possible moment that any of the leading vaccines, from large manufactures such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna, may be subject to regulatory scrutiny. If all the details confidently show that the vaccine has an appropriate level of safety and effectiveness experts say that having a vaccine in 2020 is a less-than-long-shot possibility. However, it is almost certain that you will not be injected by a COVID-19 vaccine in the year 2020.

It can be described as the most challenging and consequential single logistical undertaking ever to get the majority of the world's population vaccinated. The stakes were never higher, but the challenge was never greater either.

It's a problem of scale, first and foremost. It is not difficult to ship and administer one vaccine to one person, but to ship and administer 5 billion vaccines to 5 billion people is. That's because our world's logistics network doesn't have enough space to do that. Making it much harder, depending on the latest leading candidates, two doses offered 21 or 28 days apart would be needed for the first big vaccine to be accepted. That doubles the challenge. Distributing 10 or more billion doses of a vaccine would be difficult enough in normal times, but these are far from normal times.

With international travel all but non-existent, more than 90 percent of passenger airlines have significantly decreased their international route networks. Today, this is a problem since about 50% of pharmaceuticals are usually delivered in the passenger aircraft's belly-hold rather than on dedicated freighters. Total cargo capacity is about 30 percent down with minimal passenger operation, while cargo demand is just about 15 percent down, meaning there is still a supply shortage. This has led to existing dedicated freighter aircraft being used more, additional dedicated freighters coming into service, but still, due to constrained supply, a dramatic increase in shipping costs.

Pharmaceutical producers had to come up with different techniques to export their products before the COVID vaccine reached the global logistics network, such as flying their product to where shipping costs are cheaper and delivering them to their ultimate destination or chartering private planes and shippers were willing to scale up fairly for that, but there's one basic explanation why it won't be easy Vaccines are sensitive to temperature. Most of them have to be stored in a highly precise, climate-controlled environment to stay safe and effective. So, the cold chain is the supply chain suited to shipping goods that needed to be kept cold or frozen, such as chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. The trouble with the cold chain is that everything used must be specialised, each having the origin and the final destination to have the equipment to hold them at the specified temperature. Both solutions are difficult and complexities compounded by other complexities are what make it a real logistical challenge.

A thermal requirement like it is an entirely new ball game, and it ensures that only a portion of the cold chain infrastructure, which is already a portion of the total logistics infrastructure, will be able to be included. Many hospitals do not even have facilities to hold a vaccine at such a temperature, beyond the problem of simply getting such a vaccine to a delivery centre. Part of the reason why this obstacle has come up is that traditionally, vaccines are thoroughly tested to determine what sort of storage and shipping conditions they can endure while still staying safe and effective.

Consequently, to repeat, now, a possible vaccine would only be able to be distributed to a subset of a subset of an already overloaded distribution network, to a subset of locations, and that would have to happen several billion times, but even the answers to these problems present additional challenges. For example, Pfizer, knowing that their vaccine's particular delivery criteria could limit its commercial success, has created a partial solution. This means that, hypothetically, the vaccine could be shipped through a more traditional logistics network. Upon arrival, it can only be opened twice per da. That means that a distribution site would need to accurately predict how many doses they would need in a given day before that day

They could only vaccinate five hundred people in ten days, even if shipping was instantaneous, meaning half their vaccines would go bad. To solve this problem, Pfizer is designing a smaller temperature-controlled package, but that means adding a slightly new form of distribution, which adds complexity, slowing down the operation.

In its scenario planning, the American CDC mapped out a distribution process for if both Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are approved and, if this happened, the Pfizer vaccine would be directed to only large distribution sites that would either have the facilities for ultra-cold storage.

The sequence of operations for distribution is another challenge that needs to be met. Coronavirus affects multiple individuals in various ways. This suggests that the first person in line should be the one who is most vulnerable to COVID-19 if we want a vaccine to save as many lives as possible, and the last person in line should be the one who is the least susceptible. One set of research modelled two scenarios—the first where, of the first 3 billion doses available, 50 high-income countries buy up 2 billion of them. The second was where the first 3 billion doses were distributed to countries proportionally based on their population, regardless of wealth. In this model, twice as many people died overall with the first scenario—the wealthy countries first scenario—than the equitable, proportional approach. However, for vaccination purposes, it is the least wealthy countries, arguably those that need the vaccine most, that are toughest to distribute to. Poor countries tend to have limited cold chain infrastructure, let alone normal logistics infrastructure, poorly-funded healthcare systems.

In prosperous nations such as the United States, the delivery and administration of a sophisticated vaccine such as Pfizer's would always be tough enough. With assurance, a day's delay will lead to more death and despair. The manufacturers are working as fast as they can, they are already producing millions of doses of their vaccines before they’re approved so they can be distributed as fast as possible, and regulatory agencies have been preparing for months for an unprecedentedly fast review process, so it is now truly down to every member of the global logistics network to save lives, many of those that will be involved, especially once we get to wide-scale distribution, will be companies, not governments or nonprofits, and for them, this presents a massive business opportunity.

As well as the positive prospects for public relations. To be able to manage more of the rise in demand, DHL and FedEx are currently dramatically upgrading their cold-chain systems, while other lesser-known logistics firms are also. Ultimately, however, finding someone in-the-know who does not admit that shipping is going to be a bottleneck is challenging. This will come down to making sure that as much planning work as possible is done now before the vaccine is approved so that distribution can happen as fast as possible.

When that does happen? Now is the time to work out how the vaccine can be distributed and when. If you are a good, comparatively young person who thinks selfishly, the delivery process should take better care of you, because you are at the back of the line. If we can make an effort now to organise and train for this, to build a framework that directs people by obligation rather than money, we will at least realise that if only the vaccine came to them sooner, no lives could have been lost. In facing what is the biggest global obstacle of this generation, hopefully.

 

References:

https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/understanding-depth-2020-global-recession-5-charts

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-25/the-supply-chain-to-save-the-world-is-unprepared-for-a-vaccine

https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/air-cargo-markets-july-update/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-25/the-supply-chain-to-save-the-world-is-unprepared-for-a-vaccine

 

Apple Manufacturing phones in India

 The 2020 version of the iPhone SE is now being manufactured in India. The firm also used to manufacture the original iPhone SE in India, but has since taken the smartphone off its worldwide manufacturing line. Earlier this year, the iPhone SE 2020 was released in India, but the company has not yet manufactured it here. The system will be manufactured in its Bengaluru factory by supplier Wistron.

In the quarter ended June this year, Apple rose 5 percent year-on-year in India. Most of this growth was due to the iPhone SE (2020)'s good sales, which is presumably why Apple wants to move its assembly to the country. The total market share of Apple in India is only about 2 percent.

With growing anti-China sentiments all over the world, India is the country with second highest population in the world next to China with high man power. India with its young working population could easily meet the demand and supply for iPhone in the Asian continent but still India has to depend on China for OEM component manufacturing as India doesn’t have a proper setup for it giving China once again a upper hand in the situation. This will delay the process of manufacturing the phones locally and meeting the demand could be controlled by China to certain extent

. 

Continuity in crisis: Coronavirus calls for process re-design

 

With the coronavirus global epidemic growing on a regular basis, businesses are battling with how to continue serving their clients and communities across the globe.

Many of the company’s opt-ed for work at home and social distancing. This task is very difficult for industries that rely on in-person interaction – the service industry.

The increase in social distancing and limited contact are fundamental challenges for these industries, the companies have to respond quickly and re-design their process flow to keep their existing demand and be open for new customers.

For companies in the service industry should focus on protecting the customer as that is a core area where they can create value.

Protect your employees and customers:

When Urban Company (company that provides services at client’s doorstep) wanted exploit the opportunity of the concept of “Stay at home”, they started to re-design their process and they also offered training to their professionals in the same.

Adapting to any situation from the client: It is reposted that some clients don’t prefer Urban Company professionals in their house, these professionals are now open to giving haircuts at parking lots of the client’s house or their terrace. This may prove a problem if the experts don’t have access to mirror or there is too much wind in the area, but these professionals are trained to be agile and re-design and customize their process flow to meet their customer needs

Huawei phone prices are rising due to concerns of chip shortages

 

Chinese buyers are hurrying to purchase Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. smartphones with its high-end Kirin processors, anticipating curbs on the company's access to U.S. technology would eventually cut off production of its luxury handsets.

In order to block its access to commercially available chips, the United States further tightened sanctions, causing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) to stop exporting wafers to Huawei.

Consumers are increasingly worried over the supply of components for newer handsets because of the trade war issue between US and China Government which will affect the supply chain process for Huawei but Huawei has recently joined its hand with Samsung Semiconductors business which has agreed to manufacture the 5nm chipsets the Huawei u

sers dreamt off and makes way for new supply chain .

Demand for laptops in pandemic time

 

A surge in demand and supply gap has led to a shortage of laptops, particularly inexpensive ones, in the local market in the midst of the global pandemic.

When more and more corporations and schools move online, computers are flying off the shelf as well. In particular, it is particularly difficult to find laptops ranging from  25,000 to  50,000 now, as the current stocks are skyrocketing and new shipments are yet to arrive.

Owing to the pandemic, we have found that the supply side of the component producer has not been able to predict the surge in demand globally. Few conservative estimates were also made by our distributors. We are seeing a big increase in the pattern of work-from-home and school-from-home on the production side, which has driven production too.

The OEM components for most of the PCs and laptops are being made in China and then been shipped to other countries around the world with the increasing Covid crises issue and restricted air travel it has made transporting the OEM components harder for the Laptop manufactures. Once when all the trade barriers are removed the things will get back to normal and we can see an increase in production of laptop without sky high increase in prices.

Demand for used cars in India

 

Demand for pre-owned cars rose by 25 percent on OLX since February 2020

72 percent of the people surveyed have reduced their car buying budgets

55 percent of the respondents prefer commuting in their own cars

Over the last few months, a spurt in emissions and safety restrictions has seen new vehicle costs shot up, making older vehicles a more 'value-for-money' proposition. The economic toll of the current health crisis has had a cascading impact, further nudging buyers into the pre-owned market.

OLX announced a significant 25 percent rise in demand for used cars until early July in its new 'Auto Note' car industry survey, relative to the rate seen in February earlier this year when the effects of COVID-19 were not yet completely understood. In terms of volumes, the pre-owned car sector is now exceeding the new car market by about a third, and this is projected to expand faster.

The coronavirus epidemic has dealt the automotive industry an unparalleled blow. Although the journey to recovery is long and complicated, the demand for pre-owned vehicles is definitely well placed to stimulate the process and the early results do seem to be positive.

Why we pay more?

 

Over the past few days, petrol and diesel prices have risen sharply in India, following a strong turnaround in foreign crude oil prices and a poor rupee-dollar exchange rate.

The price of petrol has increased by approximately Rs 2.14 per litre over the past four days, while diesel has increased by Rs 2.23.

Petrol and diesel prices could increase further in the coming months as oil firms try to recover losses Another factor behind the increase is a sharp turnaround in global crude oil prices over the past few days, albeit a recent decline due to concerns of over-supply.

This is why India's oil producers have passed on the rise to clients and if there is more change in the future of the global oil industry , consumers will have to shell out further.

Many oil market monitoring experts and analysts claim the fundamentals remain fragile and prices could plunge again due to lower demand. They feel that only if the thirst for oil increases can the market steadily rebound.

Samsung strengthens its 5nm manufacturing capability not to sacrifice snapdragon 875 orders

 

In order not to lose big clients including Qualcomm, Samsung is expected to update its 5 nm technology. By the end of this year, the new production potential of this method will be announced.

The news at the time revealed that Qualcomm had asked TSMC last month for emergency assistance, hoping that because of certain difficulties with Samsung's 5 nm process, the latter would be able to produce X60 basebands and Snapdragon 875 G processors. The tentative orders for the Snapdragon 875 G are specifically for Samsung, according to the previous Qualcomm schedule. But still, it turns out that others will be moved in the future to TSMC.

This is not the first time there has been such coverage. But the 5 nm output potential of TSMC is currently very saturated. As you can imagine, this is primarily achieved with the Apple A14 processor and the latest Kirin chip from Huawei.

Samsung has currently gained all the orders back to them from Snapdragon and has also got the Huawei Kirin chip manufacturing order too due to the US-China trade war which caused TSMC to stop manufacturing Kirin Chipsets. Samsung now the monopoly company when it comes to 5nm processor manufacturing and with its state of art facility once again the Samsung becomes the king .

Samsung to benefit from a hundredfold surge in foldable display demand

 

Although foldable smartphones remain a relatively rare sight, they don’t seem to be just a passing fad. In the meantime, demand for foldable OLED panels is likely to skyrocket high enough to the point that a total of 3.9 million foldable displays will be delivered to the market by the end of 2020, up from 700,000 in 2019. Yet shipments of foldable displays could top 73.1 million units by the end of 2025.

For now, Samsung Electronics remains the world's most significant producer of foldable smartphones, and if this trend persists, the business will benefit the most from the increase in the production of foldable displays over the next 5 years. At first, Huawei seems to be a challenge to the foldable Samsung lineup, but the OEM seems to have been left behind by the Korean giant

Samsung holds 70% of market share when it comes to foldable display market and with this stunning amount of increase in Demand Samsung’s most profitable display business will be unimaginatively profitable and could earn billions for them.

 

Why did Harley-Davidson leave the largest motorcycle market in the world?

 

As part of the Rewire policy of providing a leaner operational model, legendary U.S. motorcycle company Harley-Davidson  has agreed to abandon India-the world's largest motorcycle market.

India is a market with high volumes and low margins. To play the game, they were not structured, being at the very pointy end of the pyramid. In India, the lifestyle aspect that goes with owning a Harley bike is not completely established yet.

The firm could not beat Royal Enfield's affordability, which dominates the luxury motorcycle market. In India, Harley's bikes started at INR 450,000  compared to the lighter Royal Enfield vehicles that sold for INR 200,000 .

In accordance to the above discussed reasons and with Covid pandemic affecting the existing poor sales no.s has made Harley the iconic American cruiser bike brand to quit from India to avoid bankruptcy 

Royal Enfield to set up an assembly unit in Argentina, its first outside of India

Royal Enfield, Eicher Motors' niche motorcycle brand, said it would begin local motorcycle assembly in Argentina in collaboration with Grupo Simpa, which has been a local distributor in the country since 2018.

The local assembly unit in Argentina will be housed at the facilities of Grupo Simpa in Campana, Buenos Aires. Starting this month, three motorcycle versions-the Royal Enfield Himalayan, the Interceptor 650 and the Continental GT 650-will be manufactured locally at the factory.

Vinod K Dasari, CEO of Royal Enfield, said, We have substantially expanded our international footprint over the last couple of years and now have a retail presence spanning 60 countries. We have been exploring our plans to create local assembly units across specific markets in the Asia Pacific region and across South America with a strategic view to catering to increasing demand and acquiring substantial market advantage.

Construction Supply Chain during Covid-19

 Hello everyone, I am Abhirami -  Final year MBA student from Amrita School Of Business majoring in Operations and Marketing. I am back with my blog , today its about Construction Supply Chain during Covid-19.

construction industry is one of the industry where supply chain  should be most efficient. The disruption in supply chain can cause the complete delay in construction industry. In todays scenario there is many barriers which causing the disruption in supply chain including covid-19. Due to covid and safety restriction the supply chain delays are happening worse in construction but the biggest problem in unpredicted supply chain is not manufacturing or production it is shipping and fright.

 

 

 

The entire shipping system is affected due to covid. From amazon to shutter fly and everything in between, construction is also not spared. Usually the construction materials come in passenger cargo but due to corona the passenger flights are limited that effects the inventory. Because of that the manufactures are reluctant to offer quick ship. Quick ship is important for buying lighting and mechanical equipment.

Now it is important that extra time is required for preconstruction and after construction in order to procure materials, for meet the schedules etc. Currently the gap between the disruptions is 8-10 weeks vs. pre-pandemic timelines i.e. the lead time of 8 weeks now became 16 weeks. By allowing additional time in preconstruction, construction teams can account for the expected shipping delays and sequence the schedule accordingly.

 

 

On site scheduling will benefit in delay of supply chain and loss of productivity due to social distancing or infection in job sites or any other sites.

We know that supply chain and other information regarding may vary with time given below is something that should be monitored carefully.

 

1. Electrical supplies and lightning: because of the high lead time the supply chain is affected.

2. Architectural products out of Italy: because of the large infected disease in Italy the lead time is also increasing

3. Items made or assembled in Mexico: actually Mexico is the home of many manufactures but due to the covid raise the factories are locked for days causes the delay.

4. Items made or assembled in china: in china the case is different it is where supply chain is still moving but due the war happening between India-china it affects the supply

5. Construction influx from USA: in USA they are in a coming back stage but due to the delay in shipping it effect the supply chain.

 

 The most impactful thing a general contractor can do to plan a construction project is over-communicate with vendors and suppliers; create a procurement log and track changes daily and keep owners abreast of all changes and stay nimble.  Everyone is juggling the inconsistencies in supply chain and shipping delays as the industry navigates through this unpredictable time.

 Original post : https://blog.skylineconstruction.build/construction-supply-chain-risks-and-tips

Chatbots in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

  I am Aswith Krishna Asok pursuing MBA in Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. Recently I came across an article about the role of Chatbots in Logistics and Supply Chain Management and here are some of the insights that I gathered.

 Chatbots has emerged as one of the main tools in order to ease management and communication for businesses of all sizes. Chatbots helps a company to improve customer facing operations and supply chain operations.

Chatbots in customer facing operation:

                     

Chatbots helps a company in ensuring optimum customer service. Chatbots helps in serving the customers better in various ways.
During placing of an order, the chatbot can handle necessary order details like pickup and delivery location, dates, rates, insurance and more just like a human agent. It can also process orders and send an invoice directly to the customer's inbox or email.

Customers can make changes to their orders in the same way they place an order with the chatbot. The tool may also be able to pull in tracking numbers based on past conversations and apply special conditions if necessary. This, too, can be done without any human involvement.

Chatbots make tracking easy and simple! Customers don't need to full up tracking numbers in online forms each time to know the status of their delivery. They can just talk to the logistics chatbot and get help with all tracking issues.

Customers can also use the same interface every time, be it Facebook, Skype, or company website. The chatbot will remember all their details to provide a context-based service.

Chatbots In Supply Chain Operation

 In logistics operations, chatbots will contribute a lot to a smooth information flow. Employees can easily access the data collected and needed for daily operations through a chatbot. Chatbots can be used by a logistics company to handle various types of data, such as

Customer Orders

 You can access and review customer orders using chatbots. You will have all the orders which customers place through chatbots and can also link it with data from other sources. Logistics chatbots help you to handle all data related to customer orders in real-time.

 Warehouse Matters

 In logistics, AI chatbots can render inventory management and warehouse tasks a breeze. Is there a need for a delivery boy to locate a specific package stored among a thousand others? Just ask your chatbot where the package is stored-and the exact rack number is given to you as the answer!

Fleet Information

 To monitor their cars, their directions, status and more, companies use transportation apps. To control orders and distribution routes, it is important to know where your drivers are. You may ask your chatbot to tell you which cars are idle, which one is closer to a pickup point, and effectively schedule tasks.

Personnel Information

Using apps, you can also monitor the status and availability of your drivers, workers and other staff. And then connect it to your chatbot in order to get fast responses without having to search data sets.  

Transport chatbots give your tasks a boost and make your entire team more efficient. To streamline your workflow and leverage activities, you can incorporate AI chatbots into logistics with other technologies. Some of the technologies for which you can incorporate chatbot transportation are—

 (IoT) Internet-of-Things

In the logistics and transportation business, connected devices have already become a rage. Key players have begun using connected devices to measure warehouse temperature, humidity, inventory, out-of-stock products and more, such as sensors, metres, counters.

You can now combine chatbots with IoT in logistics to streamline the flow of information in warehouse management. For example, when humidity levels in the warehouse cross or drop below the necessary requirements, a chatbot linked to humidity sensors will automatically send information to managers.

 To alert managers about shipment deliveries, the weight of goods, missing items, and so on, you can also use transport chatbots.

Voice recognition

Speech recognition, combined with Chatbot logistics, will do wonders! Voice can be easily formed as a contact platform for workers who can not access their cell phones or laptops. Voice recognition chatbots can also go a long way in answering your clients' basic questions

 The integration also makes it easy to manage operations. To navigate the warehouse and the roads, your forklift operator or driver can obey voice commands without having to look at floor plans or the map. If they have any questions, they can always speak to the chatbot to answer queries and do their job efficiently.

 

Augmented reality and Virtual Reality in Supply Chain

 Hello everyone,

 I am Aswith Krishna Asok pursuing MBA in Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. Recently I came across an article about the role of Augmented reality and Virtual Reality in Supply Chain and here are some of the insights that I gathered.

 Retailers have to incorporate sophisticated technology into their business operations processes. Instead of staying simple and they are now adopting current such as they are heading towards the game with the introduction of AR and VR experiences. From reducing cost for improving efficiency and accuracy, AR/VR can significantly affect the way orders are processed and shipped.

AR/VR is also helping the customers in engaging with products and with the features without going into the store.AR/VR technology is especially a game-changer for the supply chain and logistics industries. They are helping in improving the training and education, also for ensuring a cost-effective, fast, and error-free shipment lifecycle.

According to Forbes AR/VR helps to minimize the varying complexity faced by the supply chain and logistics industries nowadays. It provides a cost-effective solution that helps in contributing to creating a fast and error-free shipment lifecycle. AR/VR has been used in various scenarios for improving the supply chain such as by providing real-time information about manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, and also warehouses. Also delivers products within the time by providing the best transportation routes. It reduces the possibility of damages by giving detailed information about packaging and also improves transparency. Then it provides the drivers with the facial recognition technology for confirming the customer verification.

AR/VR not only helps the retailers to correctly and efficiently stock their shelves but also monitor the consumer shopping behaviors and also tracks the conversions for identifying trends and strategy for improving the customer journey and helps in driving more sales. Also using AR/VR especially for content creation, retailers will continue to maintain a strong competitive advantage and also have happy customers.

RFID Technology in Supply Chain

 

Hello everyone,

  I am Aswith Krishna Asok pursuing MBA in Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. Recently I came across an article about RFID Technology in Supply Chain and here are some of the insights that I gathered.

                           

 Today RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) is offering exciting possibilities and are solving some of the biggest problems that are being caused in the supply chain such as collecting, managing, and analyzing a large amount of data, maintaining the labor cost as low, optimizing the operational costs, and mitigating security risks, etc.

RFID tech is today an up-front investment and it is not at all cheap one. The cost of the RFID has also significantly came done for the past couple of decades by making it more attractive for the downstream retail operations. RFID mainly uses radiofrequency waves for transferring the wireless data and without the help of contact. Barcodes and RFID scanners are different since RFID scanners don’t need any line of sight they communicate with the help of the RFID tags on each item without the need to see them individually.

Wells Fargo data centers use RFID scanners mainly in laptops for indicating whether a computer is leaving with the rightful owner by protecting from any breaching of data and also thefts. The supply chain has four elements that present mainly an opportunity for leveraging RFID technology such as in integration, operations, purchasing, and also distribution.

Good integration of communication and information sharing is the need for supply chain success. By using RFID technology sharing and accessing data has become easier, also RFID tags allow the organizations to quickly account for goods in transit and collect data about them. Day-to-day operations can help in making or breaking the company’s supply chain. RFID scanners help the company’s to monitor how their goods move through the warehouses. It is impossible for the manufacture of the goods which are needed if we cannot acquire the raw materials, here RFID provides are real-time visibility over in-stock materials and also in semi-finished materials. Logistics mainly refers to the coordination and also the movement of goods from one place of origin to the destination and for this RFID tags transmit the information about the location, temperature, and humidity of the shipment whether the package has started from the origin and has reached the destination.