Supply chain technologies refer to a few of the current topics that have been highlighted in the global market due to the high competition levels that have been prevalent among the various industries that have been emerging in the global market. This might help the concerned business organizations in the distribution and the allocation of the resources within an organization in a more effective manner in order to gain a higher competitive advantage over the various other competitors. This might also help in the boosting up of the bottom line through the process of gaining the economies of scale over a certain duration of time. The following discussion attempts to deal with a few of the chief systems that are generally used by the concerned business organizations like the EDI and the RFID. The discussion also aims to throw some light on the use of the barcodes in the process.
The small enterprises functioning within the developing countries are observed to have not maintained a method of the updation of the proper accounting techniques. It is also observed that the majority of the business organizations do not possess the knowledge of record- maintenance. A study on the Sri Lankan microenterprises demonstrate the use of the RFID technology in order to arrive at an estimation on the inventory levels, the profits and the sales with regards to the discussed situation. However, the method fails to provide the most successful outcome due to the presence of several items that were illegible to the RFID machines. (Suresh and David, 2014) opine that despite the various shortcomings, the method is able to provide the close information that are related to the various business activities of the business organization.
There has been a rise in the demand of the customers for the transparency and the visibility of the operations in the recent years. This has been done in order to ensure the safety and quality products. Therefore, as opined by Kassahun et al., (2014), the ability of tracking as well as tracing the products after the purchase tends to have a huge impact on the sales.
There is observed a high amount of demand for the various customized products in the growing market all over the world.in order to match up to the demand, there should be maintained a steady supply instead of the creation of an economic deficit within the market. The continuous technological improvement is similarly important. This might be derived from the fact that the experts in the field of IT do not possess the necessary knowledge on the supply chain that might be required to implement the advanced technologies. Thus, the business organization should be advised to employ specialists both in the field of IT and supply chain in order to develop the innovations that have been related to the concerned field of study.
The presence of the common activities related to benchmarking are necessary in order to bring forth an evaluation of the systems that have been the current working sphere of the concerned business organizations in order to overcome the inefficiencies present within the concerned system. Srinivasan and Arthur (2001) opines that this might benefit all the various companies in order to have their update their systems. This might also enable the organizations to provide the best service to the various suppliers and the customers of the organization.
According to (Alex Dawson, 2002), the higher customer demand for the products has led to the creation of the critical role of the purchasing department in order to match exact needs and the wants of the client. The integration between the link chains on the process of manufacturing, the distribution and the delivery mightr be termed as one of the hardest roles. The maintenance of the effective and the efficient techniques has led to the improvement in the technological aspects. This has helped the traditional markets to the higher levels wherein the orders for the products might be placed in the virtual market and the delivery would take place within a stipulated time period.
A flexibility in the information technology is necessary for the maintenance of sustainable growth. The information technology as well as the infrastructure is related to the supply chains. However, Jeong et al. (2017) opines that there exists a gap between the IT and the SCM thereby limiting as well as affecting performance.
The current model of the integrated supply chain depicts the reversal of the flow of information. Mahadi et al. (2016) states that the information flow is not limited just to a PC. The authors argue the existence of the many new forms like the communication technologies, the factory automation as well as other various hardware accessories. A manual paper based transactional system was present in the early 1980s. However, it proved to be slow in bringing about an enhancement in the demands of the modern customer. The IT structures demonstrate the ability to put forth a reduction in the cycle time, implementation of the cross functional procedures and the minimization costs.
The interchange of electronic data is a data-exchange system over computers where in the organizations share the purchase orders, the invoices and other such related documents instead of sharing information via emails. This might be referred to as the translator for business-related purposes. Kyu and Sang (2016) state that multinational organizations like Expeditors, Linfox and Toll have gained the excessive advantage through implementation of the EDI. The EDI is capable of solving problems that are related to the rise in the supply chain. However, the system might have a high impact on transactional costs in cases of environmental and behavioral uncertainty. This might also lead to the challenges for the managers as well as certain technical risks.
The automatic identification and the data capture have received a high amount of attention in the recent times due to the enhancement of the data handling and the combination with other technologies (David and Richard, 2004). The bar codes or the human readable labels are commonly used in the supply chain for product identification. It helps in the minimization of the complexity and makes it easier for business activities by minimizing human errors (Henrik and Ola, 2009).
The radio frequency identification might also refer to the technology of automatic identification used by the radio frequency. David (2006) defines it as a form of the Auto ID technology that has already been surrounding us in the form of cellular phones, the digital radios, modern vehicles and televisions. The major difference existing between RFID and bar codes lies in the fact that a bar code might differentiate and identify products but cannot provide further information. RFID, on the other hand, is durable as compared to the bar coding and can consist a large amount of data which can be updated later.
The presence of the IT infrastructure such as the data consistency and the cross-functional application might enable the integration of the flow of information, the financial flow and the physical flow within the supply chain process. This might lead to the growth in the fields of customer, operations and revenue (Arun et al., 2006).
The advances in the concepts of supply chain technology like CRP or the continuous replenishment program, the zero-lead time, and JIT has led to enabling the creation of a platform for retailers as well as manufacturers in order to communicate in an effective manner. According to Srinivasan and Arthur (2001), this might have led to the strengthening of the relationships between retailers and manufacturers.
Conclusion
The usage of the systems has become very important since it assists the maintenance of a record of the resources that have been utilized. This might also help the concerned business organizations to maintain good relationships with suppliers as well as customers. This might in turn help the concerned business organizations to have a smooth flow in business by the elimination of the bottlenecks. In lieu of the above discussion, it might clearly be stated that the supply chain technologies play a significant role in the concerned market wherein the competition has been prevalent. Thus, the business organizations need to analyze and implement the system carefully to their business in order to gain a sustainable growth in future.
References
Alex, D, 2002, ‘Supply chain technology’, Work study, Vol.51, pp. 191 – 196
Arun, R, Ravi, P, Nainika, S, 2006, ‘Firm Performance Impacts of Digitally Enabled Supply Chain Integration Capabilities’, Vol.30, pp. 225 – 246
David, P, Richard, B, 2004, A standard test protocol for evaluation of radio frequency identification systems for supply chain applications’, Journal of manufacturing systems, Vol.23, pp.46-55
David, W, 2006, “RFID 101: the next big thing for management”, Management Research News, Vol. 29 Issue: 4, pp.154-173
Henrik, P, Ola, J, 2009, ‘Supply chain integration obtained through uniquely labelled goods: A survey of Swedish manufacturing industries’, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 39, pp. 28 – 46.
Jeong, H, Yingli, W, Mohamed, N, 2017, ‘Reconceptualization of information technology flexibility for supply chain management: An empirical study’, International journal of production economies, Vol. 187, pp. 196 – 215
Kassahun, A, Hartog, R, Sadowski, T, Scholten, H, Bartram, T, Wolfert, S, 2014, ‘Enabling chain-wide transparency in meat supply chains based on the EPCIS global standard and cloud-based services’, Computers and electronics in Agriculture, Vol. 109, pp. 179 – 190
Kyu, M. H, sang, J. L, 2016, ‘How does electronic data interchange (EDI) affect the competitiveness of a firms supply chain management?’, Journal of marketing thought, Vol. 3, pp. 13-18
Mahadi, M, Mamun, H, Mohammad, S. M, 2016, ‘An overview of information technology tools implementation tools in supply chain management’, IETI transactions on computers, Vol. 2, pp. 110 – 117
Srinivasan, R, Arthur, B.Y, 2001, ‘Beyond EDI: Impact of Continuous Replenishment Program (CRP) Between a Manufacturer and Its Retailers’, journal of information system, Vol. 12, pp.406-419
Suresh, D, David, M, 2014, ‘Radio Frequency (Un)Identification: Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka’, CEPR Discussion papers.
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