The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is here – is your business ready?
As detailed by The University of Melbourne (UOM), 4IR is transforming how supply chain operators are expected to perform amidst a world where consumers are digitally native.
The UOM report notes that today’s businesses often scramble to keep pace with a consumer base that is accustomed to quick delivery and real-time updates of their orders. To make matters more challenging, many Australian businesses are facing supply chain disruption.
According to an Australian Bureau Statistics (ABS) report, 88% of organisations continue to experience domestic and international shipping delays. Insight into where – and why – these delays occur can be difficult to pinpoint with many traditional supply chain management platforms.
If relying on manual processes that take time to update sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many businesses are left in the dark when issues and vulnerabilities arise during a product’s manufacturing and delivery schedule, critically impacting the ability to provide solutions in real-time.
Today’s leaders understand that end-to-end supply chain visibility is critical in order to streamline the next generation of business processes. This article will examine how the latest software technologies can utilise connected Brother devices in the field in order to maximise efficiency across a connected supply chain.
How supply chain control towers provide end-to-end visibility
The sooner that business leaders can deploy applications such as supply chain control towers, the faster they can truly gain insight into the vulnerabilities that affect the successful delivery of their products. Defined by IBM as a connected, personalised dashboard of data, metrics and events across the entirety of an organisation’s operations, supply chain control towers allow your business to future-proof mission-critical workflows.
Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications, business intelligence teams can create digital playbooks based upon predictive analytics and real-time actionable insights.
Managing your products across the supply chain with digital solutions can give
businesses a competitive edgeUnderstanding big data
In addition to dealing with supply chain shortages and disruptions, the sheer volume of information associated with supply chain management is burdening today’s business leaders. As a result of this ever-increasing big data, effective management systems are becoming more difficult to maintain.
A big data supply chain is best described as a platform that ensures data streams flow appropriately within a business and its ecosystems, according to tech experts Section. The big data supply chain is essential because it improves strategic decision making for your organisation.
By implementing a business architecture that can take advantage of massive amounts of data, your business can enjoy an increased level of transparency related to the manufacturing, procurement and warehousing of its products. With geoanalytics, cloud computing can enable you to monitor delivery networks and prioritise slow-moving shipments. You can also automate tasks and more easily combine moves.
Brother and our software partners can provide an efficient way to integrate your print devices into your big data supply chain management systems, so that your workforce can easily access their shipping manifests, packing slips and order assembly guides (OAGs). Big data is useless if key information can’t be accessed by the necessary personnel on time – Brother mobile printers provide your connected workforce with access to the right information from anywhere across the supply chain.
Future proof your supply chain with today’s 4IR solutions
Managing your products across the supply chain with digital solutions can give businesses a competitive edge.
Barcodes and labels, for example, provide a simple yet efficient way to store product information. With QR codes, you can create up to 7,000 characters on one scannable label that can be affixed to products, shipping manifests and other essential documents.
The Brother Titan range of industrial printers is designed for high-volume printing that meets the needs of today’s complex supply chains. Capable of producing 10,000 labels per day, the Titan TJ-4522TN Industrial Label Printer can integrate with your existing architecture. This device also supports the various printer languages of your supply chain control tower software, like ZPL2 automation.
This is just one way a label printing solution can increase your traceability efforts across the supply chain.
Printing critical information on the go is another way workflows can be managed
without disruptionsWorkflow management solutions
Talend defines big data analytics as the combination of tools, processing systems and algorithms that can interpret insights from data. Supply chain management processes have traditionally relied on enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other disparate sources of information to provide a level of visibility into their business operations. Printing critical information on the go is another way workflows can be managed without disruptions. In-the-field devices like the Brother PJ-883 provides mobile workforces with A4 thermal printing solutions. This portable printer makes short work of invoices, delivery and shipping notes, order sheets, and more.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here: Thanks to dynamic software that integrates with an array of Brother hardware solutions, your organisation can become equipped to keep pace with rapidly-evolving supply chain standards. To learn more about how you can fortify and future-proof your supply chain control tower platforms, contact Brother today.
