Topics In Demand
Notification
New

No notification found.

Sensors: leveraging power of Information in Supply Chain 4.0
Sensors: leveraging power of Information in Supply Chain 4.0

May 9, 2023

IOT

30

0

Introduction

Supply chain management provides competitive advantage to an organization; innovative supply chain drives fortune 500 companies like Walmart, Amazon, Alibaba, 7-Eleven. Innovations in supply chain management - Ford centralized efficient model, Toyota vendor-based Model, and Dell Model have empowered the last three industrial revolution. Digital innovation has immense role to play in next wave of industrial revolution.

 

Future of Supply chain – Disruptions Business 4.0

Dell pioneered the last leg of innovation in supply chain management after 1995 when it introduced a model leveraging the capability of internet to share information from customers with vendors to deliver customers personal computers with specification decided by them. The process introduced a delay of 10-15 days of waiting time for the customized product; the new game in supply chain is the race of customer preference against time.

The next wave of supply chain innovation will be driven by Business 4.0 principles and will further mitigate the gap of race against time against consumer needs and wants not only preference. Sensors specifically smart sensors connected to internet mounted on objects of transport generates continuous stream of data enables tracking and tracing of transport condition.

Supply Chain- Track-and-trace, digital assistance

Smart sensors the initiation point of an intelligent supply chain enables tracking and tracing in multiple dimensions like sharing records related to exposure temperature, pressure, weather, chemical conditions. Smart sensors are IoT devices that can generate and share records of transactions, which can be stored using block chain technology, which will ensure the integrity of the data. The data captured is shared real time is the perfect ingredients to –

Optimize supply chain network, reduce inventory, improve service level and movement at speed of now

Adapt more quickly to dynamic changes in supply and demand and enable more personalized products

With integration with consumer can generate forecast based on real sentiments

With Action and insight in a cloud and mobile platform

The recent progress in 5G adoption has potential to act as support system for digital assistance.

Smart sensors in Vaccine supply chain

Smart sensors have best application in highly controlled supply network like Cold chain in transporting vaccines. The transportation and storing of vaccines like Oral Poliovirus, Influenza

 A (H1N1) 2009 including all influenza vaccines, require continuously maintaining temperature of vaccine at temperature of 2OC to 8OC. Different COVID19 vaccine candidates requires different temperature-controlled environment for transportation and storage ranging from sub-zero -70°C to freezer temperature of 2OC to 8OC.

Any exposure to higher temperature or light/ dust can turn vaccines into potential life- threatening agent. Smart sensor can ensure reliability of cold chain and generate right records for achieving insight to balance the tradeoff between supply and demand.

Figure 1: Vaccine Cold Chain - WHO
Figure 1: Vaccine Cold Chain - WHO

Recent development in COVID19 shows the importance of traceable transportation of vaccine, and it has amplified the importance of cold- chain infrastructure after development of vaccines.

One of leading delivery services company playing a pivotal role in COVID19 vaccine transportation capitalizing on its existing network which includes sensors and a cloud analytics platform that helps stakeholders monitor the progress of shipments in near real-time. In the transformed landscape the information about a delivery package is more important than the package itself.

Table 1: Vaccine Heat Sensitivity
Table 1: Vaccine Heat Sensitivity

Speciality pharmacy, biotech companies are relying on power of cloud and analytics to overcome challenges of constrained supply chain and manufacturing challenges - short term demand volatility, disruptions due to lack of visibility into forecasting upstream and downstream. 

Sense, Analyze, Respond – Scope of IT - touchless sales and operations planning

Healthcare, Speciality Pharmacy Industry can utilize Smart sensors through Software as a Service (SaaS) model in supply chain. It will involve leasing of the equipment, outsourcing data capture and data management. This model is flexible and provides customized solution for the buyer; reduces the adoption time, eases difficulty arising due to lack of technical expertise and upfront cost associated with building smart sensor ecosystem. Service-based models are growing and becoming more diverse. In addition to solutions-based offerings, providers are offering a la carte options like, asset only services. However, the model comes with a drawback, as service-based model pushes the organization to surrendering some ecosystem value to partners.

 

To sum up the different type of operational and financial benefits it can drive are:

Operational Benefits:

Increase operational efficiency through automation

Reduce repair costs and maintenance downtime through better monitoring

Perform real-time inventory tracking with improved demand planning

Inform product development and strengthen product life cycle management

Enhance customer service by connecting more closely to the customer

Financial Benefits:

Reduces Trust problem and intermediation problem – saves significant amount in factoring, forfaiting changes in International trade.

Verify and reduce intermediaries

Creates smart contract, which reduces cost of documentation.

Barriers to Adoption as window of opportunity

Adoption of sensors using block chain requires sharing of data – a model based distributed trust. This comes with inherent social and legal challenges in security and privacy. The main challenges are surrounding personal privacy, unethical practices arising out of data sharing among competitors; and high cost of maintenance - security race to lowest price exposes risk. To make it operational we require low powered wireless devices in reasonable cost, which have reliable performance to implement the ecosystem. Adoption of the model in short requires fine balance in different conflicting parameters, but the potential advantages derived outweigh the challenges faced in adopting the model, the pressing need in new normal demonstrating the need.

 

References

[1]  https://www.who.int/immunization/documents/IIP2015_Module2.pdf

[2]https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/process-and-operations/us-cons-smart-sensors.pdf

[3]https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/supply-chain-40--the-next-generation-digital-supply-chain

[4]http://spendmatters.com/2016/04/13/more-companies-turning-to-supply-chain-sensors-for-end-to-end-visibility/

[5] https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/storage_handling_qa.htm

 

Authors :

Amurta Khatua @ amurtakhatua, Research Analyst. Tata Consultancy Services

Soumya Banerjee @ soumya banerjee , Research Lead, Tata Consultancy Services

 


That the contents of third-party articles/blogs published here on the website, and the interpretation of all information in the article/blogs such as data, maps, numbers, opinions etc. displayed in the article/blogs and views or the opinions expressed within the content are solely of the author's; and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of NASSCOM or its affiliates in any manner. NASSCOM does not take any liability w.r.t. content in any manner and will not be liable in any manner whatsoever for any kind of liability arising out of any act, error or omission. The contents of third-party article/blogs published, are provided solely as convenience; and the presence of these articles/blogs should not, under any circumstances, be considered as an endorsement of the contents by NASSCOM in any manner; and if you chose to access these articles/blogs , you do so at your own risk.


images
Amurta Khatua
Research Analyst

© Copyright nasscom. All Rights Reserved.