Lisa Anderson, President of LMA Consulting Group, was happy to have collaborated with Kardex in their new 2025 warehouse automation trends article. "Blockchain and cybersecurity together form the backbone of a resilient supply chain. With these technologies, companies can monitor every transaction, reduce vulnerabilities, and build stronger trust with their partners and customers."
The peak season started two months earlier than normal and extended two months later than normal to account for the volatility and expected disruptions in the global supply chain.
Every CFO seems to wonder why they spend millions on ERP upgrades yet critical decisions seem to boil down to spreadsheets.
As business executives contend with heightened supply chain risks and inflationary pressures, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a hot technology that can help to improve business performance.
Companies can mitigate the volatility caused by labor disputes by rethinking sourcing strategies, upgrading planning processes, and using advanced technology.
Given the uncertainty of the economy creating extreme push outs and pull ins with customer orders, only those companies that can successfully deal with uncertain and changing conditions can thrive. Better utilizing ERP, quoting, and CRM systems to automate planning and scheduling processes enables quicker pivots to satisfy changing customer conditions with greater stability for operations.
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) have plagued medtech’s supply chain since the pandemic. Drug shortages last year hit their highest levels in a decade, with 99% of hospital and health system pharmacists experiencing medicinal dearths, according to an American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) survey.
There has been a plethora of strikes, potential strikes and disruptions in the last few years. In fact, the threat of strikes has made its way through the supply chain.
According to the WorldMetrics.org report, 89% of manufacturers believe automation is key to increasing productivity. More importantly to increasing profitable growth, the report also finds that automation reduces manufacturing lead time by 75%.
Enterprise resource planning systems, CRMs and other tech such as RFID, barcoding, customer and supplier portals, blockchain, IoT, and GPS tracking all support this goal.
