Automation is on the rise in industries around the globe. Today, employees from departments like marketing, sales, management, and product design all use AI to increase their productivity, double-check their work, and increase their operational agility.
These same insights can be applied to supply chain management. Modern supply chain managers already use analytic AI assistants to make accurate predictions and spot emerging trends. This can make a world of difference in a highly competitive industry where everyone is looking to outperform the competition.
Reskilling for the future of supply chain management is crucial for firms that want to remain at the cutting edge of automation. Modern supply chain specialists will need a basic understanding of the machine learning programs that underpin their software and should be capable of tweaking parameters in search of greater operational efficiency and agility.
Supply Chain Skills
Supply chain management is all about evolving to the changing world. Firms can’t expect to outperform the competition and meet increasingly demanding consumer expectations if they stick to principles and protocols that were common practice 20 years ago. Instead, supply chain businesses can work to close the skill gap among employees by embracing approaches like:
- Reverse Mentoring: Younger workers tend to have a better understanding of emergent technology than their more experienced peers. They can help reskill folks who may be hesitant to utilize automation to its full potential.
- Education: Leveraging automation successfully requires re-education. Businesses that invest in education early will benefit from improved agility later on when new technology is released.
- Hiring: By building a brand image based on being at the cutting edge, companies can attract talented employees who understand the inner workings of complex automation algorithms and can help their respective firms stay ahead of the competition.
These efforts will minimize the skill gap that employees who are unfamiliar with automation may face. Companies that take automation seriously may be able to attract younger, highly skilled employees who want to work for firms at the cutting edge of supply chain management today. These businesses that embrace automation will also experience increased retention amongst existing workers who are passionate about learning more about the wider world of supply chain automation.
Supply chain giants like DHL already use AI in their supply chain management strategies. As well as installing a fleet of packaging robots, DHL uses AI machine learning algorithms to enhance its inventory and sorting strategies. This, they explain, has resulted in a 40% increase in sorting capacity and can accurately sort up to 1,000 items in a single hour.
Refreshing Skills
Reverse mentoring is a great way to re-skill existing employees. However, more experienced staff members may resent efforts to close the automation skill gap if they aren’t pitched in the correct way. Rather than pushing the idea that experienced team members’ skills are outdated, focus on the benefits of annual refresher training, including:
- Keeping employees up to date with changing compliance guidelines
- Enhancing confidence with emergent technology
- Reducing the risk of error and automated accidents
- Building communication pathways for folks to discuss emergent automation tools
- Identifying persistent knowledge gaps and additional training needs
Refresher training upskills the workforce and helps folks stay up to date with potential compliance issues. This is crucial for companies that want to future-proof their employees and aim to embrace automation in the coming years.
Future Proofing
Future-proofing is crucial for any supply chain firm. Effective future-proofing ensures that businesses are able to adapt to changing markets and can keep up with trends and new technology. This is particularly important today, as automation advances at a nearly exponential rate. Companies can future-proof their businesses today by:
- Collecting and analyzing competitor data to identify best automation practices
- Regularly auditing and updating technology connected to the IoT for great data collection purposes
- Invest in training for new programs and trend identification
- Establish smart partnerships with brands and businesses known for automation software and services
These steps will help companies stay ahead of the competition and will ensure that firms are well-positioned to pivot toward more productive tools when new automation products are released. Proactive steps like investing in technological trend identification will ensure that supply chain businesses are aware of new tools before the competition and will give them a chance to test prospective programs before their peers.
This is something that brands like Unilever do well. Unilever uses AI to speed up innovation and make discoveries about human biology that scientists may have overlooked. They use computational models to “test” products before they make it to humans, thus improving the quality of their new products. This future-proofs the firm by reducing the amount of time products spend in R+D and increases their chances of discovering a new condiment, perfume, or sweet treat that people will love.
Future-proofing the firm will help companies stay ahead of the biggest trends in supply chain management today, including:
- New and escalating conflicts
- Climate change
- Digital resilience solutions
- Highly effective right-shoring strategies
These trends are set to shape supply chain management in 2024 and cannot be overlooked. Firms that embrace automation today can use historical data points to better understand issues like global conflict and rising temperatures. This will be pivotal in years to come, when conflicts over resources reshape the way that otherwise stable supply chains function.
Conclusion
Automation plays a pivotal role in modern supply chain management. Firms that embrace automation can help their teams adapt to new technology and will benefit from a first-mover advantage.
However, for automation to be a success, more experienced employees may have to reskill and retrain themselves. Companies that do decide to reskill their teams should consider using reverse mentoring so that older employees can benefit from the knowledge base that recent graduates may have.
About the author
Indiana Lee is a freelance writer from the Pacific Northwest, specializing in business operations, leadership, and marketing insights. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
