Manufacturing Supply Chain Innovation to Look Forward in 2023

Overview:

The New Year comes with new hopes and expectations. Innovations in every field has shaped the course of working style and human behaviour. Sometimes to ease the processes, some time to save costs, some time to speed up and sometime to be more precise, the innovations in traditional working style has impacted all sectors.

Manufacturing is not an exception.?Supply chain is the backbone of manufacturing. With the world facing many challenges like increasing labour cost, shortage of labour availability, increasing consumer demands, regulatory laws becoming more stringent, disrupted supply chain due to geopolitical conditions and aftermath of pandemic, and pressure of reducing carbon footprints, supply chain will see innovation and inclusion of technical aids in the current year-2023.?The endeavour of manufacturers will be to make supply chain more resilient, agile, and robust, yet smooth and lucid, to surpass the ill-effect of these dynamics.

Key drivers of supply chain innovation in 2023 – There are many key drivers of this innovation in the year 2023. Some of which are:

Labour shortage and labour cost – The supply chain has been badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and tiffs between countries. The world is still trying to overcome the jerk. Due to the pandemic, there was a dearth of labour. This shortage created a surge in labour cost, based on simple demand vs supply principle.

Pressure of reducing carbon footprint - As the world is advancing and trying hard to reduce its carbon footprints, organisations are seeing new ways in this direction. Technology can have a fair bit in achieving that.

Geopolitical situation- As geopolitical situations are changing drastically, organisations cannot rely on a single source or vendor. ?They must search alternatives to fulfil demands, deliver goods and eventually make customers happy.

Technological advancement – New technical advancement like robotics, IoT, blockchains etc are proved to increase efficiency and accuracy of supply chain. Usage of these technologies, although currently in nascent stage, has been helpful for manufacturers. Going forward, manufacturers will search options for rampant use of such technologies.

Innovation we can expect in 2023:

Companies across the world are seeking efficiency, cost reduction and increase in profits. In this endeavour, a lot depends upon supply chain, as that is heart of the whole machinery. The supply chain is radically changing with growing market situation and customer demands. Like any other area, supply chain is also expecting huge involvement of technology, to enable manufacturers to get a fair share in the market. Below are some innovations in supply chains we can look forward to in 2023:

Use of Robotics- As the cost of labour and unavailability of labour is increasing, redundant work can be done by robots. We have seen some use of robotics in past years, but going forward, usage is surely going to increase. Deployment of robots will save time, cost, and errors.

Low-cost sensors- Driven by a framework known as Prognostics and Health Management (PHM), the use of sensors will increase going forward. The sensor can sense and predict the health of machines used by manufacturers and predict breakdown or overhauling time of a machine. This prediction can help manufacturer to take pro-active action to avert any hindrance in process and avoid any last-minute chaos and opportunity loss.

Internet of Things – Where things are turning smart, manufacturing is becoming smarter as well.?In a smart manufacturing scenario, IoT tracking can do wonders.?Companies can track movement of their goods and entire supply chain easily. This will help companies to make better decisions at faster speed.

Use of AI and ML – Use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will increase in 2023. The extensive use will enhance forecasting, and planning. ?Supply chain AI can also give manufacturers regional demands and seasonal demands, providing an edge of information.

Use of Blockchain – A block chain will revolutionize supply chain.?It is a distributed ledger technology. With the help of a blockchain, company can securely share data across the entire network. Besides, businesses can run contracts automatically. Block chain will allow businesses to track complete supply chain easily.

?Digital Supply chain twin- Digital supply chain twin is twin brother of its real-world supply chain. In other words, it is digital version of supply chain. Use of digital supply chain will save a huge time, money, and efforts of manufacturers. Manufacturers can make business-critical decisions at faster speed. ?It will make organisation ready for situations unthought of, and organisations can take necessary measures to tackle those situations.

?Circular supply chain - The world is promoting zero-waste environment. Linear supply chains create leftovers after creating a product.?Circular supply chain recycles unused fragments back in supply chain, thus making environment waste-free.

ERP and supply chain innovation

Traditional manufacturing ERP software had empowered manufacturers to take control of supply chain effectively. With growing challenges and demands, ERP software have transformed, and induced new age technologies in their ERP systems.?The innovations that we discussed above can be harnessed with the help of a new age manufacturing ERP system. In addition to the traditional functionality of an ERP system, they enhance performance, make businesses agile and responsive and offer greater inter-operability as well as accessibility. With the modern ERP for your supply chain, manufacturers can make smart decisions, improve productivity of supply chain, make it more effective and remove bottlenecks.

Conclusion

Manufacturers across the world have dual challenges. First, they must bounce back after setbacks of pandemic and its aftereffects; second, they have to simultaneously be prepared for unforeseen scenarios that might disrupt whole supply chain in future. Between these two, manufacturers must ensure to provide cost-effective products to the customers.

To handle these challenges, innovation is the only solution. Innovation that is cost -effective, sustainable, growth oriented, robust, and agile. In 2023, companies and manufacturers will imbibe many innovations to tackle challenges and prepare themselves to accelerate on growth trajectory.