I often recommend the introduction that Ben Worthen at CIO Magazine has compiled -- ABC: An Introduction to Supply Chain Management -- as a good place to get a very quick, high-level introduction to some basic supply chain management concepts.
For those wanting some insight into what is coming next, Worthen asks and answers this question: What are some emerging technologies that will affect the Supply Chain?
Worthen identifies Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, as an important emerging technology that will affect the supply chain. “RFID tags are essentially barcodes on steroids. Whereas barcodes only identify the product, RFID tags can tell what the product is, where it has been, when it expires, whatever information someone wishes to program it with. RFID technology is going to generate mountains of data about the location of pallets, cases, cartons, totes and individual products in the supply chain. It's going to produce oceans of information about when and where merchandise is manufactured, picked, packed and shipped. It's going to create rivers of numbers telling retailers about the expiration dates of their perishable items—numbers that will have to be stored, transmitted in real-time and shared with warehouse management, inventory management, financial and other enterprise systems. In other words, it is going to have a really big impact.”
There is little question that RFID will have an huge impact on supply chains, but there is still a long way to go before it becomes a driving force in most supply chains. There are several obstacles including cost, lack of standards, and simple reliability. One client that I work with uses RFID for a very small amount of their products. The read rate is unacceptably low and the value created is questionable. Ultimately these problems will be overcome, but for now this is still an evolving technology. What is important is that the supply chain software you implement today needs to be capable of handling the enormous amounts of granular data that will ultimately need to be handled when RFID does hit the mainstream.
The emerging technology that is having the greatest impact on supply chains today is the Internet. For about eight years the providers of legacy supply chain software have been web-enabling their solutions. However, the transformative change is coming from a new breed of innovative software firms that are developing Internet-native supply chain applications that are fundamentally changing the game. These firms are building their solutions from the ground up to eliminate latencies, enable real-time transactions, and to couple planning with execution across the extended supply chain. Legacy solutions that are web-enabled are inherently hobbled in their attempt to participate in the supply chains driving real-time commerce. The supply chain industry has never been more dynamic and filled with opportunity. For those willing to innovate with new supply chain technologies, big opportunities for unlocking value exist.