Retail and Supply Chain Reads

Retail and Supply Chain Reads.

Learning Tech vs Knowing current trends in each domain vs Getting insights from different reports vs Building your own insights/predictions, The cycle never ends!!!

Retail Trends Playbook 2020

Key Notes

• Retailers can transform data into dollars by using customer information to determine better marketing, service and product opportunities.
• Data intelligence is a key ingredient to the customer experience
• success in this new era is dependent on understanding and anticipating the needs of customers at every stage of the retail journey.

Consumer trends

• Customers are Comfortable Sharing Data In Exchange For Better Experiences
• Customers expect Personalization At Every Stage
• Customers want Knowledgeable Staff On-Hand For Service And Support
• Data-Powered Warehouses Reduce Cost Of Ownership
• Consumers Spend More With Better Service

Supply Chain Resilience Report 2021

Key Notes

• The number of organizations who report on disruptions is continuing to increase
• COVID-19 has increased the number of organizations using technology for supply chain management
• Over half of organizations admitted COVID-19 increased their use of technology for supply chain mapping
• Cross border land transport has been the primary cause of logistics disruption in 2020
• Management have become more committed to managing supply chain risk

Beyond COVID-19: Supply Chain Resilience Holds Key to Recovery

Key Notes

• COVID-19 has now unleashed a global supply chain crisis across a huge number of organizations, stemming from a lack of understanding and flexibility of the multiple layers of their global supply chains and a lack of diversification in their sourcing strategies.
• Where possible, diversified supply-chains across companies and geographies greatly
• reduce exposure and if firms are tied to single suppliers, risks from supply-chain disruptions 
• Big data analytics can assist firms in streamlining their supplier selection process, cloud-computing is increasingly being used to facilitate and manage supplier relationships and logistics and shipping processes can be greatly enhanced through automation and the internet of things. 

Supply-chain recovery in coronavirus times—plan for now and the future

Key Notes

Keep connecting the dots !!! Diversified and predicting risks / setting up a Digital connected supply chain!!!

Applications of Machine Learning in the Supply Chain

Key Notes

• AI is the new electricity
• ML is at hype cycle

Realtime AI

• Dynamic routing - dynamically learn best route
• Worker / Picker assessment
• Optimal pricing through real time market feedback
• Forecasting - Prophet

Dynamic Routing

• The traditional approach - Regression
• Online learning-based approach
• Exploration vs Exploitation trade-off
• Routing under uncertainty
• Minimize cost on average
• Optimization problem
• Dynamic routing
• Identify new routes based on the current status

AI, Machine Learning & Supply Chain // Manuel Davy, CEO of Vekia

Key Notes

• Global, Agile
• Collect information of Stores, Products, Location
• Demand forecasting - at different timescales

Using Graph + Machine Learning to Optimize Logistics in Supply Chain

Keep Thinking!!!

IoT Architecture

• Edge - Lightweight protocols for Machine to Cloud communication - MQTT (Lightweight pub/sub) - Immutable data - Read-Only - Data cannot be modified
• Cloud Entry - Large scale data ingestion to consume data - Kafka - (Distributed Log processing)- Immutable data - Data cannot be modified
• Cloud Streaming - Real-time data analysis to report and alert - Spark - (RDDs / ML ) - Immutable data - Data cannot be modified
• Store and Analyze - Reports on data, Completed transactions - Postgres, RDBMS - Do the Remaining CRUD
• ML on Edge, ML on Streaming data, ML on Stored data (completed transaction)

The confluence of blockchain and IoT in Supply Chain can improve the efficiency of the operations, as per @EqualOcean's research. Link > https://t.co/5nWv9EIqNh @antgrasso via @LindaGrass0 #SupplyChain #blockchain #SmartContracts #IoT #Tech #DigitalTransformation pic.twitter.com/bDmPz7Njz0

— C-Suite Tech Point (@CsuiteTechPoint) May 25, 2020

IoT ecosystems that stitch together sensor-based data with legacy systems and newer technologies hold tremendous promise for those engaged in moving goods. Link > https://t.co/Uk0IFVrVqs @DeloitteInsight via @antgrasso @antgrasso_IT #CloudComputing #AI #IoT #IIoT pic.twitter.com/FpUDIR9kgN

— Antonio Grasso (@antgrasso) May 21, 2020

mt @Fisher85M
cc: @MikeQuindazzi @antgrasso#SupplyChain 4.0 & #4IR

[@JacBurns_Comext]#MachineLearning #IoT #IIoT #sensors #CyberSecurity #bigdata #5G #Industry40 #mobile #disruption pic.twitter.com/BCH8SnEEkF

— Digital Retweet (@DigitalRetweet) May 9, 2020

Happy Learning!!!

What is Reverse Logistics.....

Reverse logistics has been defined as “... the term most often used to refer to the role of logistics in product returns, source reduction,recycling, materials substitution, reuse of materials,waste disposal, and refurbishing, repair and remanufacturing.” (Link)

A very good comparision on forward logistics vs reverse logistics presented below. Source Reverse Logistics Association.

Do find time to check Reverse Logistics Wiki
Reverse Logistics Framework as provided in Wiki. This kind of completely covers End-to-End Reverse Logistics Operations.

Very good white paper from UPS on ReverseLogistics
Key Learnings as Captured in paper as Summary

• Customer retention/satisfaction - Post Purchase Support for Repair is very important for better customer satisfaction
• Container reuse
• Recycling programs (Transport packaging)
• Damaged material returns
• Asset recovery/restock
• Downstream excess inventory (Seasonality)
• Hazardous material programs
• Obsolete equipment disposition
• Recalls

A good Example is also provided in the paper.
Possible options for reclaimed product

• Refurbish (Improve product beyond original specs)
• Recondition (Return product to original specs)
• Salvage (Separate components for reuse)
• Repair (Prepare for sale as a used product)
• Sell to 3rd Party
• Recycle
• Discard/Liquidation (Landfill)

The confluence of blockchain and IoT in Supply Chain can improve the efficiency of the operations, as per @EqualOcean's research. Link > https://t.co/5nWv9EIqNh @antgrasso via @LindaGrass0 #SupplyChain #blockchain #SmartContracts #IoT #Tech #DigitalTransformation pic.twitter.com/bDmPz7Njz0

— C-Suite Tech Point (@CsuiteTechPoint) May 25, 2020

Other Good Reads you may like
How to Develop A Reverse Logistics Strategy
Improve Your Business Applications
Advanced Exchange Service Model and the Secret of the ‘Black Hole’
Analysis of Reverse Logistics
Reverse Logistics Metrics (Customer Satisfaction, Financial Performance, Manufacturing (or Returns Processing and Refurbishment), Transportation and Warehousing)
Supply Chain Metrics