Thursday, May 22, 2014

Internet of Things: SCM perspective

Supply Chain Management encompasses a series of activities which involves procuring raw materials from suppliers, transporting them to manufacturing units, transforming the raw materials into finished goods and distributing it to the customer. Since the entire process comprises of complex network of suppliers, factory, distribution cells and customers, the system has to be efficient, effective and robust. This was the traditional SCM Model. It had some limitations, such as, in most of the cases it had fixed designs that could not be changed according to the real time environment. Also the model used to be cost oriented and not revenue oriented. To save upon the recurring cost, a generalized Supply Chain System was implemented.

For this process to work in the desired manner flow of material and information becomes pivotal. But the flow of information is often outpaced by the flow of materials in the SCM. Information technology is used passively to study the processes but no real time information is available which could help analyse them and the inefficiencies associated with it deeply. This is where Internet of Things can be extremely useful. It is how materials can interact using internet/web. In SCM this can be used to obtain real time information regarding the materials, right after procurement to the distribution of materials. This technology not only helps to track the process but also through real time analysis helps to remove inefficiencies in the system real time eventually assisting us in taking and implementing decisions

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