The Role of Technology in Modern Supply Chain Management

This report delves into the critical role of technology in modern supply chain management and logistics, exploring its transformative impact on business processes. The introduction highlights the importance of technology in enhancing efficiency, transparency, and customer satisfaction within the supply chain. The literature review examines the impact of various technologies, including RFID, cloud computing, and big data, on supply chain operations. It discusses how these technologies increase transparency, improve communication, and enhance the individual employee's role. The report also covers advanced technologies like radio frequency identification and weighing technology. Finally, the summary and conclusions review the objectives, discuss limitations, and suggest future research directions, emphasizing the continuous evolution of technology in supply chain management.

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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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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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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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)

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Increased focus on the individual employees: The modern smartphone technology
providers the vendors and the shippers with the ability of pairing the workers with
appropriate devices accurately for the daily work. As the mobiles devices are becoming more
varied and diverse, the companies are determined to match correct job with the right device.
While the smartphones are becoming increasingly precedent in the operations of supply
chain, this technology is still under debate. In the present times, several asset-lite carriers
leverages the smartphones technology (Rushton, Croucher & Baker, 2014). With the use of
apps, the proprietary programs as well as the mobile technologies, the smartphone technology
utilises the alerts from smartphone that are placed with driver and it creates a trace of how the
freight is pursued. The smartphones provides the open network of the carriers with the
capability of acting like sealed fleet network (Khajavi, Partanen & Holmström, 2014).
Improved communication as well as community: The smoother as well as
increasingly frequent communication creates the business processes significantly easier. The
mobile applications as well as the real time communication could develop improved sense of
unity as well as development from those already implemented in the market (Mangan,
Lalwani & Lalwani, 2016). The managers are could use the technology significantly but the
improved communication as well as the access of real time information could provide the
updated information about the happenings of the business. Further than conventional
communication options, smartphones provides the employees of the 3PL companies with the
enterprise technology solutions made accessible in the marketplace utilise the pings as well as
the information and it improves the communication as well as offers several capabilities for
making the big carrier quicker (Apte & Petrovsky, 2016). The tactical workforce
administration is specifically crucial for the businesses those are immensely understrength or
facing several difficulties filling the capacity. The supple communication channels within the
features of supply chain could upsurge the productivity of the employees and increase morale

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of the employees. The improved collaboration as well as the communication finally provides
the company with the ability of providing better customer services. The communication aids
in the products delivery as well as product tracking that leads to the greater customer
contentment with the supply chain procedure. When the employees are associated using
several phases of supply chain, the workers likely feel increasingly fulfilled and there is a
situation when the operations are executing smoothly (Chen, Preston & Swink, 2015).
Figure 3: Impact of technology in supply chain management
Source: (Apte & Petrovsky, 2016)

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Advanced technologies to develop supply chain management
In the recent times, the utmost important business area within any industrialised
facility is the supply chain. The supply chain of companies are the point of the processes,
which not only determines the effectiveness of distribution but it also improves the quality of
product any customer procures. The supply chain management can be termed as the crucial
component of the productivity. In the technologically developed business markets, the most
substantial changes is acceptance of the modern technologies of enhancing the efficiency as
well as the accountability within the complete supply chain (Rauer & Kaufmann, 2015). The
online chain management has immensely transformed the recent business by enabling the
increased visibility as well as tracking. Technologies allows the real time monitoring of
complete chain that includes the invoicing as well as shipping.
The main dynamism within the technology products includes smartphones, tablets, the
GPS devices and several other technology that have grown to be popular in the manageable
supply chain knowledge that is significantly vital in observing supply chain with the use of
wireless technology (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014). The major gain from the revolution in the
technological field is the flexibility that is offered to the logistical managers in the tracking as
well as monitoring of the complete chain. The supply managers now have the ability of
making the required changes in supply chain. These particular changes in supply chain with
help of the technology allows increasing the customer satisfaction (Luthra et al., 2014). Some
of the shared technologies that are utilised in modern supply chain of the companies are:
Radio technology: The major issue that is tackled by the managers of the supply
chain in the companies is increase of the anomalies when the orders are placed in the transit.
It not merely leads to the damages but it ultimately has the negative effect on the brand. With
the acceptance of the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification technology), any enterprise
could efficiently manage each of the product equally at production line as well as in supply

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line RFID chips are implemented on the matters that aids the personnel in swiftly detecting
anomalies in any of the orders (Korpela, Hallikas & Dahlberg, 2017). This is presently the
most innovative methods of correcting the issues prior it ruins complete supply chain.
Advanced Weighing Technology: The major hindrances within supply chain is the
assessing procedure. The out-of-date truck scales are presently being utilised in the majority
of the industrial facilities that significantly compromises the efficiency (Oettmeier &
Hofmann, 2016). For eliminating this particular issue, the modern technologies include
resourceful on-board truck scales. It permit the continuous operations when accesses to the
platforms balances are not accessible. This particular scale measures the payload weight as
well as the gross weight of the truck (Govindan et al., 2014). It helps in enhancing the
productivity by guaranteeing that the truck carries the majority of the weight from the loading
point while saving money as well as time. Onboard truck scales are being increasingly
adopted as the safety assurance for ensuring the operators in any warehouse for any example
solely convey the permitted weight on the lifts (Marinagi, Trivellas & Sakas, 2014).
Figure 4: Impact of technology in supply chain management
Source: (Govindan et al., 2014)

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Social Media Revolution: With the increased popularity of the social media
websites in the present times, the businesses are increasingly leveraging the power of the
social media for the optimisation of the supply chain operations. This leveraging the most
ingenious method of opening increased channels and prevail within touch in live with each of
the shareholders of the company within supply chain (Taticchi et al., 2015). It is significantly
easy in responding to the questions, report within real time, report the price fluctuations and
then improve the visibility of the company.
Figure 5: Importance of technology in supply chain management
Source: (Taticchi et al., 2015)
Transport Management Software: The supplies administration with the
computerised solutions is forthcoming of the businesses. The utilisation of the computerised
tracking as well as shipping allows the integration of all the operations from any one panel
(Stadtler, 2015). However, it is presently possible to possess such panel in the mobile devices
that means, it provides the change of organising the catalogue data, manage the shipping,

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manage the circulation and then generate the electronic notice of the landing, combined in
one place. It helps in enhancing the customer experience as well as reduce the errors within
the complete process (Gunasekaran et al., 2017).
Data analytics: The modern technologies provides significant amount of data that
could be used by the companies for predicting the customer behaviour and the customer
preferences (Wu et al., 2016). Each new tools is generating huge amount of data that is
helping in driving the intelligence that could be used by supply chain management
effectively. With the consideration of data sources from RFID, the customer surveys, the
CRM transactions as well as the call center logs, it is often predicted that the big data would
be utilised in modern supply chain of the businesses (Ross, 2015).
Importance of RFID technology in supply chain management
Significant evidence is gathered for utilisation of the supply chain management for the
efficient allocation and distribution. Moreover, the literature on the application of RFID is not
described briefly in detail. The efficiency of any supply chain and the logistics plays
immense part in the growing return of a business. Moreover, the major discussion that is
conducted in the present times is the search of the optimum level of the operational efficiency
within any supply chain (Luthra, Garg & Haleem, 2015). Presently, the major
interconnectivity among various connection among the supply chain plus the logistics is
inaccurate and incomplete owing to the fact that each of the connection within any chain is an
individual entity. It hints to the deprived product visibility along with the clearness in the
stock within supply chain. It is specifically crucial when the scalability issues are considered.
The present technology that is being implemented in the organisations is the RFID or Radio
Frequency Identification. This technology is combined along with the information
distribution systems. It is considered that in future, this combined technology would impact
crucially in future of the global trade (Chen, Zhang & Delaurentis, 2014). With the