The fourth industrial revolution termed as Industry 4.0 follows the basic characteristics such as the creation of intelligent factories, which implement and integrate state of the art technologies. Industry 4.0 has bought a lot of changes and scope of efficacies with itself. With technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality, Big Data, 3D Printing, Cloud Computing, and Data Science, among others flashing over, the supply chain is set to improvise.
Industry 4.0 and Supply Chains
The present supply chain methods opted by various industry giants lack one thing or the other when it comes to being efficient. These inefficiencies range from integration of data analyzers, to loosely managed transport and logistics to long-term stability. However, the recent technologies are on a spree to help industrialists make peace with these inefficiencies. Let’s see how different next-generation technologies are benefitting the supply chains.
- Improvising with IoT
The industrial version of the Internet of Things known as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) focuses on embedding more and more products (including the unfinished ones) with computing. IIoT technology focuses on providing an efficient and stable business model to supply chains. To achieve this feat, the IIoT focus on providing better traceability, stock predictions, resolved transportation issues, etc., by providing centralized controllers and data availability. The data is all collected and secured at a single place that helps in providing real-time analytics to embedded systems, improving proficiency.
- Breaking through Challenges with Blockchain
Blockchain understood to be a chain of blocks with each block securing a certain amount of data, making it accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere, is one of the most important technologies working to enhance the supply chain network.
Blockchain can be defined as an Industry 4.0 information security system focusing on securing data anonymously, in a decentralized manner, making it free from any manipulations. Introduction of Blockchain in the supply chain network has worked to make the transaction within the network secure and faster. Another benefit offered by this technology is the centralized storage of data that comes with ease of access. Being a distributed and decentralized information technology, Blockchain provides a sense of security as breaking through this technology for information theft is known to be quite a difficult task.
- The Magic of Machine Learning
Machine learning a significant part of Data Science is another spectrum of Industry 4.0 that is dedicatedly working to benefit the supply chain networks. Introduction of Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, 3D printing, and many other technologies introduced as a part of Machine learning under the recent industrial revolution are known to have reduced the risk of stakeholders.
Minimizing the dependence of the supply chain networks on human resources, these machine learning technologies are promoting the growth of these networks by making everything digitalized.
Wrapping-it Up
O4S have joined in hands with the latest technological advancements to stand out in the market. Walking with the latest trends, the O4S platform works on a cloud-based ecosystem to secure the data of their partners, alongside offering easy connectivity through mobile phones. Tracking retailer data and consumer interests the O4S system stacks all the data to provide the best possible results to its partners. It can be rightly said that technology is here to promote market growth.
