Supply chain management and monitoring are crucial for all businesses. Regardless of industry or product, your business needs to know where your inventory is at all times so that it can move quickly to the consumer. Tracking products from suppliers through delivery to the end-user is essential to business success.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has made supply chain management much more straightforward. With the use of Bluetooth technology or an RFID tracker, you can manage your inventory from suppliers to deliveries with ease and accuracy. The use of smart technology in supply chain management will provide you with the following benefits.
Supply Chain Management Benefits
Inventory Tracking
When you use IoT technology to manage your physical inventory, you will always know exactly what your business has and what it needs to order and produce. With each item electronically monitored, you will have better inventory control, which will reduce losses and improve performance.
Cold Shipment Tracking
Many different industries require that their shipments remain at a certain temperature when shipped. Food and beverages, pharmaceutical products, and many chemicals require strict temperature controls to avoid spoilage. Because of the risks of spoilage, some pharmaceutical distributors will not accept loads that have not been remotely monitored through the delivery process so that it can be proven that the temperature did not change enough to harm the product.
Using remote reefer monitoring services can help you monitor the load from start to finish and produce a report with real-time tracking of the shipment the entire time it was in transport.
Fleet Management
As more consumers turn to the Internet to make purchases, businesses must find cost-effective ways to get their product to the consumer. “The last mile” has become a cringe-worthy statement for all businesses that find getting that product into the hands of the consumer is often time-consuming and expensive.
Using smart technology, fleet managers can schedule routes that are more fuel and time-efficient. Through the use of GPS and traffic monitoring technologies, delivery routes can be designed to deliver the most product in the least amount of time.
Maintenance
Most companies schedule the maintenance of their machinery in cycles to try to prevent down-time in their production areas. However, the need for maintenance may not fall into the same schedule as the company has set for the equipment. Using smart technology, you can track the production of each piece of equipment and schedule preventative maintenance according to manufacturer recommendations and avoid shut-downs from equipment failure.
There are several other benefits that smart technology can bring to your company. Using the IoT, you can create a transparent supply chain, improve production schedules, and even increase your overall output.
