CeMAT Insider

First published in the Forkliftaction.com News ‘Your Focus’ column.

Steve Shakespeare is director of customer service at Jungheinrich UK. He oversees an extensive, customer service support network that comprises specialist technical engineers and product quality managers, with a dedicated UK parts centre and tailored service and maintenance packages.

The multichannel retail business model, along with increasing levels of global sourcing, have created staggering opportunities for importers and exporters around the world, whether they be huge multinationals or small companies shipping globally for the first time.

This post was written by Volker Glöckle, Logistics Automation Industry Management, SICK AG, Waldkirch, Germany

Digitalisation, networking, cloud computing, data security – the fourth industrial revolution is underway – even concerning logistics – and is at the level of prompt and consistent data and information. Making logistics-related object properties available to all members of the supply chain, reveals a whole host of potential for efficiency. The prerequisite for this is a secure data space that is regulated and standardised across the board.

It does sound like something out of The Jetsons, but with a prototype from Amazon, and fierce competition coming from Australia Post, it’s looking like Jeremy Clarkson was right when he referred to drone delivery as “a miracle of modern technology”.

 It’s not new to those in the material’s handling and manufacturing industries that there is increasing pressure to deliver goods quickly, while also reducing costs. Although at first driving down transportation costs may seem like an unsurmountable hurdle, there are a few easy tricks you can start introducing today to help you reduce freight spend and overall transporation costs for goods.

“We appreciate the value of infrastructure to improve the efficiency and safety of our supply chains” stated Michael Kilgariff, Managing Director of the Australian Logistics Council (ALC) at CeMAT Australia 2016.

ALC represents some of Australia’s largest freight companies, and remained quite vocal in the federal election to prioritise infrastructure reform and encourage a national discussion on the importance of a long term strategy.

It’s easy to forget about the human touch when you’re digitising your supply chain management strategy. The efficiencies and optimisation of processes that arise when digitising can make it very tempting to get automation happy.

In 2017, brick and mortar stores are set to represent 72% of retail revenue, with e-commerce representing 18% of revenue, and mobile making up 6% of revenue.

It’s not new that the logistics industry is transforming. Developments in technology that are being fuelled by the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data, mean that hardware and software applications speak to each other better than ever before.

Mining big data to enhance the efficiency of your supply chain may be seen to be a daunting and scary task. Gleaning the right insights from the mass of information your business is collecting can be challenging, but you’re not alone.

Many businesses are experiencing changes as a result of the uptake in eCommerce, and logistics automation is no exception. We spoke with Marcus Rose, Sales Manager at Custom Automation about the biggest trends and benefits when implementing logistics automation, and not surprisingly improved safety, improved efficiency and a reduction in costs seem to be the winning factors for more efficient supply chain management.