How is your digital consciousness?

How is your digital consciousness? It is a question that is likely to be asked more and more as digitalisation of the supply chain develops.

Already, American trade association MHI has created a Supply Chain Digital Consciousness Index in association with Deloitte.

It says the aim is to help organisations assess their digital mind-set and gauge their progress on the journey to becoming more digital.

MHI and Deloitte have also published the results of a survey on the impact of digitalisation on supply chains.

Robotics and Automation would have the biggest impact it found – 40 per cent of respondents thought this has the potential to create competitive advantage while 24 per cent thought it has the potential to disrupt the industry.

But some 45 per cent thought predictive analytics has the potential to create competitive advantage. Other high scorers are Network Optimisation Tools (44 per cent), and Sensors and Automatic Identification (41 per cent).

Artificial intelligence technologies was seen as a potential disruptor by 24 per cent – autonomous vehicles and drones was identified by 22 per cent as a potential disruptor.

Clearly, these technologies are at different stages of development. There are warehouses using robotics now and it seems certain that its use will grow. But artificial intelligence is still at a relatively early stage in supply chain.

As a result, making the right decisions now is going to be critical. After all no-one wants to find that they have committed to the Betamax of supply chain technology.

You can calculate your company’s Supply Chain DCI here.