Importance of Technology in Supply Chain

Running head: IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
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IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
Table of Contents
Part 1. Introduction.........................................................................................................2
1.1 Reason for choice for report.............................................................................2
1.2 Academic objectives of project........................................................................3
Part 2. Literature review.................................................................................................3
Impact of technology on supply chain management..................................................3
Advanced technologies to develop supply chain management..................................8
Importance of RFID technology in supply chain management...............................11
Importance of cloud computing in supply chain management................................16
Importance of big data within supply chain management.......................................18
Part 3. Summary and conclusions................................................................................21
3.1 Reviews of objectives........................................................................................21
3.2 Limitations.........................................................................................................21
3.3 Suggestions for future research..........................................................................22
References....................................................................................................................23

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IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
Part 1. Introduction
This report intends to debate importance of technology within supply chain
management as well as logistics. Logistics is commonly described as the segment of supply
chain procedure that mainly executes the planning, implementation and then controlling the
operative, effectual, inverse and the onward flow along with the storing of the goods,
information and any kind of information among the origin place and the consumption place
for satisfying the desires of customers in the correct conditions. Moreover, the supply chain
mainly comprises of the stages that are needed for satisfying requests of customers.
Supply chain management could be described as management of the information,
resources and the assets with the movement in the procedure from the suppliers to the
manufacturers to the wholesaler to the retailers to the customers. The present emerging
technologies are developing the strategic chances for any organisation to create significant
competitive benefits in the numerous areas of function with administration that includes the
logistics plus the supply chain management. Moreover, the main amount of the
accomplishment solely depends on the choice of appropriate technology for any application,
the accessibility of the appropriate infrastructure within organisation, management strategies
as well as culture. This research project discusses the main impact of technology in the
supply chain of organisations. A detailed literature review has been presented for the
discussion of the importance of technology within supply chain management and logistics.
1.1 Reason for choice for report
The key reason why this topic is selected for this report is to understand the recent
developments with the technological field in supply chain management with deriving the
main methods by which supply chain management could be improved in future with the
appropriate use of technology.

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IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
1.2 Academic objectives of project
To determine main impact of any technology on the logistics and supply chain
management in present times
To determine the various technologies that are used in the supply chain management and
logistics and understand their importance in supply chain
To understand the role of the modern technologies in the supply chain management and
logistics
Part 2. Literature review
Impact of technology on supply chain management
The modern technologies is significantly transforming the daily business processes for
several organisations in supply chain management. The requirement for the real time
pursuing and appropriate delivery schemes creates the supply chain management suitable for
the technological improvement, which includes mobiles, handheld technology as well as
wireless technology. These technologies are leading completely throughout the transportation
and the logistics sectors (Fredendall & Hill, 2016). With the completely changing prospect of
the technologies in the modern times, maintaining the pace with the innovative capabilities
and the most appropriate practices could be significantly challenging for the large companies
those possess significantly profound investments in the older technologies and it is
considered as a long lasting procedure (Hugos, 2018). Even though the transitions takes
significant time, the leveraging of innovative and modern technologies is crucial in the
competitive industry (Monczka et al., 2015). Some methods by which technological
innovation is transforming the supply chain management are:
Increased transparency and efficiency: In the present times, where technological
innovation has not been implemented, the shippers are under immense pressure of reducing

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IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
the costs of supply chain as the section of the superior initiatives of saving the assets of the
companies (Lin, 2014). The shippers desire increased services and increased transparency
from managers of the supply chain, precisely deprived of any increase in the costs. With the
introduction of the wireless period, several providers of third party logistics plus the
managers of supply chain have implemented the wireless tools along with cloud computing
technology for the automation of systems and gain improved accuracy (Tian, 2016). Not
solely the automated schemes are significantly swifter and increasingly effectual than the fax
based prototypes, the methodologies of the mobile as well as automated technologies also
offer improved data apprehension that could help in improving the processes and it could also
be stored as well as analysed for targeting the areas of significant improvement.
Figure 1: Technology in supply chain management
Source: (Lin, 2014)
As an example, it could be considered that the mobile devices could convey the
wireless evidence of delivery along with updated transportation observing that could help the
mangers with the discovery and then addressing the operational anomalies (Wisner, Tan &
Leong, 2014). The 3PLs are turning to the technological solutions for rearrangement the
activities of the supply chain of clients and then enhance the relations with clients. The
increased usage of the technology of Customer Relationship Management prevails to offer

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IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPLY CHAIN
the simplified access perceptibility of the operations of supply chain, assisting the leaders
with identification of the inefficiencies as well as the bottlenecks in the commercial
operations. The technologies like RFID or Radio Frequency Identification is the most popular
technique of data capture and automatic identification. As the RFID chips could be easily
linked to the catalogue, clothing and many other aspects, the likelihoods of the tracing are
significantly expensive and it is valid to several prospects of supply chain (Dabbene, Gay &
Tortia, 2014). The use of technology significantly reduces the labour expenses by the
appropriate restructuring the data apprehension and then decreasing error prone manual
procedures. The access to the updated, updated information all through the complete supply
chain is presently impacting significantly on the progress of the companies and expected to
do the business. The simplified access to the real time information has impacted severely
(Kshetri, 2018). The APIs provides the logistics providers with the ability of interfacing with
several system in enhanced manner and then decrease the time taken to gain the data from
one point to another point. The enhanced flow of information also provides the possibilities
of increased asset utilisation by providing loads to the shippers, reducing the empty miles
from network of transportation (Waters & Rinsler, 2014).
Figure 2: Technology in supply chain management
Source: (Dabbene, Gay & Tortia, 2014)