Applications of AI, IOT and Cloud in supply chain

 Supply chain has been evolving by adopting the technology landscape of the times. Be it in terms of mechanical steam engines, electronics and automation and now the buzz word industry 4.0 , supply chain always incorporates tech to become more efficient and more responsive from time to time. In this article I will show the potential applications of current booming technologies in the field of supply chain.

Current technology Landscape 

At present some of the technologies that are booming are Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud, Autonomous vehicles, IOT etc.Now we will analyze applications of AI, Cloud and IOT in this article.

Artificial Intelligence

Computers and all the electronics are becoming smart . Thanks to the development in the fields of both hardware and algorithms , now computers can churn large amount of information and make timely quick, precise decisions.

Artificial intelligence can process large amount of information on the suppliers to predict the produce,in manufacturing plant to help in preventive maintenance, in supply chain to analyse large amount of data to provide actionable insights etc.

AI adapts itself to the environment and learns on the job.Its capability to process lots of information is unmatched. 

On the limitation side , AI cannot deal with the outlier events , in this case humans are the best to take information. Hence AI cannot replace humans. To overcome the limitations of AI now augmented intelligence is being developed which can combine both the strengths of human and machine to deliver the quality results. 

IOT

IOT stands for Internet Of Things, before the advent of IOT each machine works in silos , the parameters provided by one machine is noted by an operators and processes this information at a later point of time. But this is very slow and ineffective process. What if we make the machine talk to us continuously ?

This is the idea behind IOT where machines continuously communicated different data , this data traveles through the internet medium to a storage place. This transfer is provided by the internet vehicle whose speed has been increasing providing real-time actions and monitoring . After the data reaches to the destination it is processed along with multiple other data to take a timely and correct action.

The two technologies that enable IOT are sensors, Internet and bigdata. With developments in these technologies the applications of IOT can be increased reliably. 

Cloud 

Cloud is remote computing power that is available to you .Cloud also requires good internet. Using cloud large amounts of data can be stored in remote servers and can be accessed from any device, anytime and any place. This flexibility doesnt pertain only to the data, it extends to the software, services etc .Now you need not install a software in your machine. Your machine just requires a browser and thats it . With zero foot print on your machine you will be able to do what you want to on a remote computer seamlessly, thanks to the advent of mobile , now you can  access the files and work on them while you are travelling and at anyplace where you can get good internet. This was possible using a technology called webapps . You probably are already using webapps like google docs etc.

Cloud can be applied in Supply chain to host the ERP system and also create a digital twin of the entire supply chain to involve all parties responsible from end to end to a single source of truth.