Supply Chain
Factory 4.0 for optimized production
Logistics optimization
End-to-end supply chain: good communication from supplier to customer
In conclusion
For several years now, markets have been evolving in a VUCA context: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. The world around us is experiencing increasingly dynamic changes: hyper-personalization of demand, interdependence of value chains, tensions on certain key resources. From then on, Supply Chain 4.0 appears as the strategic response to this growing complexity.
For several years now, markets have been evolving in a VUCA context: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. The world around us is experiencing increasingly dynamic changes: hyper-personalization of demand, interdependence of value chains, tensions on certain key resources (e.g. the component crisis). From then on, Supply Chain 4.0 appears as the strategic response to this growing complexity.
Supply Chain 4.0 is the adaptation of the supply chain to the new requirements in terms of company digitalization. It is an intelligent value chain that optimizes its processes end to end: transport, supply, subcontractors, production, warehouse...
The decision-makers of the value chain are supported by new digital technologies and artificial intelligence (IoT, data analysis, blockchain...).
However, the promises of Supply Chain 4.0 come up against certain barriers: infrastructures rigid to change, installation costs, integration of the new technologies into employees' daily lives...
Resolving these challenges is essential to achieve an efficient, optimized, and more sustainable Supply Chain 4.0.
It is the fourth industrial revolution that gave rise to Supply Chain 4.0. The growing need for competitiveness among companies has made supply chains and production processes increasingly automated.
This digital revolution upends traditional production methods and redefines the face of modern factories. The factory 4.0 is a robotized factory that uses IoT (Internet of Things), artificial intelligence, and other technologies to optimize its production.
The robotization of factories constitutes a major step toward the factory 4.0. Robots are the extension of the operators who pilot them. They make it possible to carry out difficult and repetitive tasks at a low cost. Manufacturers benefit from time savings on lead times thanks to their use. The sensors placed on the robots make it possible to track in real time the progress rate of production, the state of the machine, and its manufacturing pace. It becomes simpler to identify the sources of delay or sub-optimization of the chain and to make decisions accordingly: reallocation of the load, maintenance, reorganization of the flow...
These growing data flows enable the use of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and production-flow management. The factory 4.0 optimizes its operations, improves its performance, and strengthens collaboration throughout the production chain thanks to this data.
Tools such as Oplit make it possible to manage production flows. Optimizing production operations is essential. Thanks to the load-capacity and scheduling simulations in Oplit, the planner can make production hypotheses, distribute the load within the factory, schedule its bottleneck workstations, manage its target stock, and choose to call on subcontractors.
The artificial intelligence integrated into Oplit proposes optimized production plans to the schedulers. This makes it possible to adjust the scheduling of operations according to priorities such as resource availability, priorities, and customer preferences.
Oplit's multi-site view of the factories and overall view of each factory offers a global vision. It is a tool to support strategic industrial decision-making. It offers real-time analytical data on overall performance: adherence rate, work-in-progress level, delays, stagnation, lead time... This information helps decision-makers identify the constants and anomalies in their production processes and make decisions accordingly quickly.
With a dynamic and interactive tool, in the era of 4.0, manufacturers can quickly and easily transmit information about their orders to their customers.
Oplit's objective is to help manufacturers minimize lead time, optimize capacity (machine and operators), and save planners time. Ultimately, Oplit contributes to improving the factory's overall productivity and to a more transparent supply chain.
Logistics plays an essential role in the supply chain. Here, we address two axes: warehouse management and transport management. These two sectors are largely affected by the 4.0 revolution.
WMS 4.0: automated warehouses
4.0 warehouses are fully automated thanks to the use of new technologies: IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics... They have the following characteristics: intelligent management systems, automated storage systems, use of robotics, real-time tracking of the warehouse's life.
The WMS 4.0, the 4.0 warehouse management system, integrates all these new technologies. It represents a major advance in warehouse management because it makes it possible to optimize warehousing operations, stock management, and order preparation.
Artificial intelligence helps predict demand based on history and prediction models. This reduces the risks of stockout or overstocking. It also makes it possible to optimize storage areas and goods routes by mapping picking and replenishment routes according to operational constraints. Finally, it makes it possible to adjust the storage zones according to demand, priorities, and stock levels.
Robots make it possible to increase handling speed and thus the productivity, flexibility, and overall responsiveness of the warehouse. Order-preparation robots help operators with operations such as sorting or packing. They make it possible to automate flows and thus ensure more productivity and safety within the warehouse. To cite a few robots, there are pallet wrappers, AGVs, autonomous mobile robots, automated logistics sorters...
Repetitive tasks are carried out faster with fewer errors thanks to artificial intelligence, which optimizes operations, and robotics, which reduces processing times. The number of human errors decreases, which translates into increased inventory accuracy, a reduction in returns, and an optimization of logistics operations in general. Operators gain safety. The risk of accidents and injuries decreases. The real-time machine-tracking systems make it possible to plan maintenance, to detect safety problems, and to resolve them quickly if they arise. The warehouse gains flexibility and adaptation and can better cope with demand fluctuations.
Still with a concern for goods traceability, pallets can be identified by RFID chip. Rather than having a barcode to scan to do the inventory, a robot passes through the storage aisles. Its integrated reader can quickly identify the pallets thanks to the chip's transmitters. Thus, inventories are carried out more regularly, without error, and the warehouse gains efficiency in its logistics operations. All the new pallet-identification technologies make it possible to improve the real-time tracking of the warehouse, to track stock, and sometimes even to adjust prices according to the stock level.
The WMS 4.0 collects data in real time, which makes it possible to track stock, arrivals, orders, and finally the overall performance of the warehouse. It becomes simpler to quickly identify the sources of inefficiency, error, and delay and to make decisions accordingly.
By adopting the 4.0 approach, warehouses ensure that they optimize their logistics operations and ensure better customer satisfaction.
TMS 4.0
The 4.0 revolution also affects the transport sector. The objective is to achieve ever faster and more reliable delivery.
A TMS 4.0 makes it possible to track deliveries in real time through sensor systems integrated into the truck, container, wagon... They collect data on temperature, emissions, humidity, and location in real time. This allows the carrier and the manager to track their shipments, to ensure quality and compliance with standards, and to warn customers in the event of possible delays.
The artificial intelligence integrated into the TMS 4.0 makes it possible to optimize transport routes according to traffic, weather, cargo, operational constraints, fuel costs, and CO2 emissions. It also makes it possible to optimize the load-grouping capacity. This happens through order consolidation or through the grouping of certain shipments in the same trip.
Finally, the TMS 4.0 helps decision-makers with data analysis. It provides a real-time view of transport performance, costs, and delivery times and, ultimately, supports decision-making. It makes it possible to detect trends, to identify bottlenecks, and to optimize transport operations.
Its advantages are the following:
Operational efficiency gains: optimization of routes and rounds
Cost reduction: fuel, labor
Improved customer satisfaction: fast and reliable delivery
Sustainable transport: sustainable optimization of transport activities
From the customer's point of view, a complete supply chain offers many advantages, such as increased visibility, fast and flexible delivery, customized products, and better quality and traceability. Ultimately, it is the entire customer experience that is improved. By communicating effectively throughout the supply chain, companies can meet customer expectations and gain competitiveness.
Supply Chain 4.0 offers a global vision of the value chain. It is a key asset in the strategy and decision-making of leaders. The interconnection of the links, from supplies and subcontractors to the customer, via the factories and warehouses, makes it possible to gain efficiency and competitiveness.
The company's headquarters plays an essential role in driving the change toward 4.0. It is what makes it possible to stay the course on transforming the group's culture. It connects the stakeholders and the systems to support the transition toward a transparent and responsive value chain. When each link is integrated into the chain, they then have a more global understanding of their own activity. On the other side, for the headquarters, this strategic alignment of all the links offers visibility into overall performance.
Ultimately, it is the customer who gains visibility and transparency. All this contributes to growing consumers' trust in the company: better quality, more transparency, more traceability, in less time. It is the entire customer experience that is improved. In the age of globalization and the ecological transition, a supply chain that is fast, flexible, and committed to the sustainable development of its activity will be all the more valued in the market.
Supply Chain 4.0 opens up new opportunities for companies to create supply chains that are more agile, intelligent, responsive, and connected.
Cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence, and robotization make it possible to improve operational efficiency and to reduce production, storage, and transport costs. More generally, this transformation allows companies to position themselves strategically in an ever more competitive environment.
Supply Chain 4.0 is the future of logistics, and the companies that adopt it will have a significant competitive advantage in the constantly evolving digital economy.
