Many vendors analysts and systems integrators look at new disruptive technologies such as IOT, AI and blockchain individually, the real value to the supply chain comes from combining and aggregating these technologies together.

Organizations conducting paper-based business transactions will struggle to leverage disruptive technologies without extensive manual. Rework to obtain maximum business value companies need to ensure they have an end-to-end digital foundation or backbone in place.

The digital foundation allows companies to seamlessly exchange electronic business transactions with 100 % of the trading partners in a digital business ecosystem.

Once the digital foundation is in place, then at that point companies can leverage the combination of IOT, AI and blockchain to enable an autonomous supply chain leveraging an Internet of Things platform allows companies to create a digital twin of a piece of equipment or serviceable asset.

Internet of things connect sensor information that can be leveraged to not only identify shipment location while moving through the supply chain, but also monitor shipment condition. We can also remotely monitor the condition of the truck systems.

Artificial intelligence derives insights from information moving across the digital business ecosystem, whether analyzing transaction information to determine the best performing trading partner or analyzing IOT Center information to determine if a piece of equipment is about to break down.AI helps companies optimize and drive efficiencies across an end-to-end supply chain. 

Blockchain, a relatively new disruptive technology in its simplest form, is a trustless immutable, distributed ledger that can archive information from across the extended enterprise from a supply chain Point of view. 

The most popular use case relates to track and trace and knowing the provenance of goods or raw materials, an automatic supply chain will help companies establish a highly intelligent, connected, self-aware and trusted environment, an environment that leverages deeper insights to supply chain performance to refine business processes.

Improve traceability of goods and record and secure an archive of all digital interactions between a company and its trading partner community for more information on how open texts can help enable an automatic and finally autonomous supply chain leading to digital transformation and Industry 4.0 initiatives.