IoT and Supply Chain: A Profitable Integration for Product Delivery Management
Tags: iotinsupplychain, industrialiot
Published: 2020-08-26 04:59:03

In today’s world economy, supply chains play an important role in almost every industry for continuous growth. However, with the development of technologies, supply chain complexities are ever-improving as physical supply chains extend their geographical reach in order to get access to arising markets.

IoT is improving the supply chain management operations with beginning from raw materials procurement to finished product inventory management. To drive a successful business, one should have effective supply chains and be capable to recognize emerging concerns.

The integration of trending technology, such as IoT, along with the supply chain, will give the best possible solutions to resolve production and asset tracking difficulties. The incorporation of the supply chain with the IoT can simplify the supply chains and diffuses inefficiencies without complex and stressful process.

Why do the Issues keep Evolving in Supply Chain?

The main reason behind the supply chain concerns previously was the complexities in controlling the sudden change in demand and margin destruction and it was due to the deficiency of advanced tools. But the supply chain still lacks visibility, digitization as well as traceability.

The integration of the supply chain with other technology would allow us to keep the record of supply chains entirely. 

The assumption of IoT would support recognizing inefficiencies and enable us to deal with it quickly. It is slightly not possible to recognize and solve the evolving supply chain barriers without cross-supply-chain visibility. IoT will help to resolve such critical situations.

How to overcome Supply Chain Complexities with IoT

IoT is supporting every industry including farming, manufacturing in different ways. It is also reevaluating warehouse management and tracking the last-mile deliveries with complete information, to direct root-cause analyses for regulating bottlenecks in the system and initiate data-driven insights to optimize Supply chain Management.

Increased Visibility

IoT allows supply chain managers to associate the vehicles, equipment and devices to acquire the real-time status of the trucks. The combination provides the real-picture of the processes going on in the supply chain, from a warehouse to distinct contributors and customers.

For instance, managers can track the precise location of the vehicle rather than depending on job status. 

This visibility allows managers to take a smart and timely decision for the smooth transportation of goods. Increased visibility also provides other benefits like minimized transportation costs and less product breakdown.

Assisting Collaboration

The adoption of IoT assists industries in getting a thorough view of the supply chains, their significance and their effect on the businesses. Maintaining a track over composite supply chains where distinct components are sourced across various suppliers and locations is necessary.

In such scenarios separating centers into silos and then acquiring the real-time details of the complete chain through the help of IoT would simplify the work.

The improvement in collaboration across the business area would support in recognizing the possible concerns and support in making smarter strategic decisions to improve productivity. For example, in the asset tracking business, manufacturing units accumulate products from several sources.

So, it is required to track the product carrying trucks and analyzing the route adopted by them, which can cover the maximum resources for product collection would help in saving time, transportation cost and product quality.

Excellent Utilization of Assets

IoT also helps to enhance the quality of your fleet management. Providing your fleet with IoT sensors (https://www.hiotron.com/) can assist you to maintain track of vehicle maintenance levels, gives alerts if there’s a problem or something requires a little tune-up. 

Managers can easily track and monitor the utilization rates to check the efficiency of assets and to schedule the highest number of jobs for each asset in the future.

Based on the assets utilization and its performance, business operations can be structured. Actual assets utilization increases productivity and assists supply managers in scheduling more deliveries or dispatches per day.

When estimated and measured across a fleet and the complete supply chain, this helpful step decides by bringing a huge boost to a business’ bottom line.

Secure Customer Service

A well-connected supply chain improves efficiency and builds up customer service. Managers can approach the data anytime on a mobile app and get information about the real-time location of an item.

Real-time data on product location assists in making exact estimating of product delivery. Supply chain managers can recognize the upcoming possible concerns and inform customers about the delivery, or they can make alternative arrangements to fulfill the Service Level Agreements.

A connected fleet even allows automation of status updates for customers to support them to keep informed about the product delivery status and minimizes inbound inquiries to customer support centers.

IoT is lean to revolutionize the supply chain both in terms of its operational efficiencies and revenue opportunities by making it explicit.

In supply chain management (https://www.hiotron.com/iot-supply-chain-management/), managers can embrace IoT based technologies for even connectivity and a better tracking system.