At the end of the day, everyone is just trying to live his or her best life. Your best life might be different from someone else’s, which is why some people are driven to Steve Jobs-ian business success, while others are just as happy to play video games in their mom’s basement well into their 40s. No judgment here; choose whichever path feels right. And regardless of what you set your sights on, they say “If you’re going to be a ditch digger, be the best ditch digger there is.” Similarly, if your business relies on a complex system of supply chain partners, you might as well make the best use of your resources, improve efficiency, maximize profitability, and make sure it’s sustainable, all while delivering a delightful customer experience that places you head and shoulders above your competition.
Simple, right?
Obviously no, not so simple. As manufacturing has traversed each new generational wave of innovation, businesses are often left with a collection of disparate technologies across the multitude of vendors, suppliers, and factories that they employ. While perhaps functional, these structures aren’t always streamlined into one efficient system. Data has become siloed and end-to-end visibility doesn’t exist. Lacking for this kind of insight can have an adverse effect on meeting modern customer needs.
Incorporating supply chain optimization — that elusive state of efficiency and responsiveness where customers’ needs are met through a holistic view of the end-to-end supply chain — could save more than $700 billion in waste food waste per year. It’s nothing to shake a stick at.
How Do Businesses Achieve Supply Chain Optimization?
In the glow of Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing, technological strides in visibility, intelligence, and analytics have been made possible through artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), the cloud, the industrial internet of things (IIoT), and material ledger. Because today’s supply chain is so widespread, there are a great number of variables that can tank anyone’s best-laid plans. By incorporating material flow analytics to create an intelligent supply chain, your operations are more capable of absorbing, minimizing, even completely avoiding obstacles that would otherwise knock you completely off schedule. These obstacles may include extreme weather events, fluctuations in local labor supply, or a global pandemic (or as some call it, “the year 2020”).
Outfitting machines with IIoT sensors connects them to the cloud, feeding all their data into a central source of truth where you can begin to leverage the power of AI and ML. Now you can ingest piles of data and find new efficiencies. Transportation, storage, stock, and waste can all be viewed and analyzed in real time, and outcomes predicted and optimizations executed to significantly reduce cost. Algorithms guide us in finding supply and demand levels for optimal inventory. Predictive analytics clue us in to impending maintenance, future performance, and drive revenue. By wrangling in most of the supply chain for end-to-end visibility, your operations can open up a more focused strategy where everyone is paddling in the same direction.
Supply Chain Optimization By ThinkIQ
ThinkIQ’s Digital Manufacturing Transformation SaaS provides the supply chain optimization to make it all possible. We make products better and safer, your business more profitable, and the planet cleaner. Our software platform provides end-to-end traceability of materials as they move through complex supply chains. We use sensor data (traditional and IIoT) and advanced algorithms combined with semantic modeling to automatically detect physical events. Traceability data is then used as the “spine” connecting existing disparate systems to discover correlations that uncover the real issues in the supply chain.
We’ve revolutionized digital transformation in manufacturing through advanced materials traceability using our material ledger. Though you have probably heard a lot about the promise of blockchain, for the specific purpose of tracking material movements and providing context to process and quality data, material ledger is where it’s at.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. ThinkIQ helps businesses make better, more profitable manufacturing production decisions, decreasing waste and virtually eliminating recalls by enabling farm-to-fork visibility from data created by sensors. Our fact-based granular and data-centric contextualized view of material flows and related provenance attribute data delivers unprecedented traceability and insight into ways to improve yield, quality, safety, and compliance while reducing environmental impact.
In other words, we can help your business become more sustainable and resilient and realize the dream of supply chain optimization. Not a bad way to live your best life.
Get in touch with one of our friendly experts today to discover your next step in getting your supply chain optimization plan in gear. You can also start by downloading our eBook titled "Advanced Material Traceability Revolutionizes Digital Transformation".
