Impact and potential of supply chain 4.0

Abstract

Industry 4.0, also referred to as the Fourth revolution has the potential to transform various industry processes and bring in a lot of new technologies to meet customer expectations. With Industry 4.0, Logistics has transformed from just an operation function under manufacturing or sales to a separate function, where logistics will be a competitive advantage for firms. Through this project, we have studied the Industry 4.0 technologies like the Internet of things, 3D printing, Big data analytics, Artificial intelligence, and their applications in industries and the challenges faced by these technologies. To understand the impact and potential of Industry 4.0 technologies in the supply chain, we analyzed the change in the direction of information flow from one-directional to multi-directional in an integrated supply chain, the growth in employment in the warehousing and logistics sector. We have also looked into how the supply chain will transform with the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. The impact on planning, physical flow of goods, performance, order management, and collaboration strategy of organizations have been studied. In this report, we have also dive deep into the impact of IoT and Big data analytics in the logistics sector. Real-time applications of IoT in logistics sectors are covered with the live example of e-commerce, Daimler, Volkswagen. The application of DHL Resilience 360, which is an instrument developed by DHL using Big data analytics to manage risk in the supply chain, is used to understand the potential application and limitations of Big data in logistics sector.