How IoT in the supply chain can help manufacturers?
Muhammad Hanzla Ijaz
Before we get started with How IoT in the supply chain can help manufacturers? It’s essential to first understand what IoT supply chain management is?
A supply chain is a gateway between the production phase of a product. The connection between each step should be on point and crucial because any error can cause operations to go downhill or delay transport or logistics. That can end up drastic as it will cause quite an expense and result in poor profit. In the IoT supply chain, information sharing occurs with a network of sensors.
That helps link the devices (logistics, transport, robotics, smart warehouses) and the data. That is further transferred to the Internet to facilitate any business or industry with analytics and decision-making processes.
IoT solutions are created with multiple components and each of these components form into an IoT value chain. Now you may be scratching your head and wondering what’s an IoT value chain? Well I assure you it’s not any rocket science to figure out. A value chain is basically used in terms of an IoT solution or a specific industry that follows these 3 layers of IoT Implementation.
First comes traditional devices (sensors, chipsets) Second comes connectivity that can be through networks like (telecommunication, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) Third comes the application platform on which IoT performs.
How IoT devices change supply chain management?
Supply Chain
With IoT devices (sensors), you can track and monitor each product, inventory, shipment, and machine condition. For a clear picture, placing an IoT sensor within your product can help your business track the location and condition of items as they are being transported. Such information allows enterprises to calculate when shipments will get delivered and prevent issues related to shipments arriving with damaged items.
Another scenario where you can use IoT sensors includes machines. The bigger the industry is, the more extensive the workload is. Therefore, it is crucial to check out the health of equipment and machinery. If any machines break down, it can slow the supply chain. So by installing IoT sensors in equipment and machinery, you can monitor performance and help predict the breakdown of any necessary details like maintenance issues.
Besides improving the supply chain, IoT devices are also working to transform factories into smart manufacturing factories. With the help of sensors, actuators, and chips, everyday manufacturers can record, capture, and critical research details about their product support and aids. Other than that, various technologies enable smart factories, including big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing. The data gathered is utilized to improve the process, like meeting the demands in a shorter time or pointing out any other arising issues.
How IoT is Transforming the Agriculture Supply chain?
As the population is stacking up day by day, there might be a point where we face overpopulation. So in order to confront such adversity head-on, you have to opt for IoT smart farming or greenhouse technology. The IoT-enabled smart technology uses sensors and gateways to collect and analyze data. IoT smart farming observes the crop field with the help of sensors for light, humidity, temperature, soil moisture, and crop health and automates the irrigation system. The farmers can monitor the field situations from anywhere. It’s comparatively a better option than manual labor as it’s pretty stressful and expensive (labor cost).
Solving Supply Chain Problems With Asset management
Asset management is all about keeping track of your company’s assets (physical assets like tools, automobiles, or IT devices) and information. Speaking of managing or tracking assets, most companies still stick to the old-school ways of manually managing assets either by writing them down or on Excel sheets. Instead, these methods are considerably less reliable because they are vulnerable to errors and considered quite hectic for asset managers assigned to keep an update of these records.
While on the other hand, most companies have shifted toward using dedicated asset management solutions to create a smooth flow of functions, letting all employees access and update assets’ data efficiently. This solution means tagging company assets with asset tags like QR codes, Barcodes, or NFC tags.
They are managed by asset tracking software. Various sensors can be helpful for different cases; some of them are speed tracking, temperature, pressure, and proximity sensors. These sensors are placed on assets to collect data forwarded to designated cloud storage within a specific duration of time.
Asset management solutions, such as IoT Premis provide companies with important asset-related information. This employee monitoring tool uses real-time monitoring. Thus, it lets you know employees’ execution processes and work patterns. You can study your employees’ productivity efficiently by accessing these details. Top of that, it is easily accessible just by employing beacons (in the form of employee cards) within your premises.
Not only does it track and monitor employees’ activities. But also forward data related to them straight to the cloud storage. That not only secures data but is much more cost-efficient, rather than paying for each server to store your data. Besides, you learn about strengths and weaknesses within your company.
As the industries are advancing from time to time, technology is also changing, and vice versa, the workload is also stacking up. Advanced technology like A.I are proving to be more effective in managing the supply chain as compared to hiring extra employees or laborers to do a task. A.I is proving to be faster and more reliable in the case of decision making, performing large calculations, product predictions, and other supply chain activities.
For Example, A.I is being used in many supply chains, Industries are shifting towards self-driven vehicles just like autopilot for the delivery process.
Conclusion
We can conclude this debate on IoT and how it’s transforming supply chain management. By simply observing how it’s impacting not just our way of working but how much it has proven to be helpful. From performing tracking and monitoring of employees and products within premises of industry or warehouse.
To manufacture and deliver products through A.I and IoT-based solutions. People get worried when they think about the rapid change in technology like IoT and A.I in industries or supply chain. Will end up replacing them and making them unemployed but as a matter of fact it will create more job opportunities within the industry.
