Transparency and sustainability top 2023 supply chain priorities

NEARLY THREE quarters of supply chain leaders are increasing their supply chain technology and innovation spending according to an industry report released at ProMat 2023.

This investment includes solutions for improved supply chain transparency and sustainability, according to the 2023 MHI Annual Industry Report, The Responsible Supply Chain: Transparency, Sustainability, and the Case for Business, which Deloitte wrote for MHI.

“Responsible supply chains must react in real-time to changing conditions, this requires actionable data, automation and automated decision-making,” said John Paxton, CEO of MHI.“Investments in automation and other digital solutions like IoT, advanced analytics and AI not only arm your operations with speed, accuracy, and improved visibility. These solutions enable the real-time decision-making and transparency necessary for reporting and improving performance up and down the responsible supply chain.”

Once again, hiring and retaining qualified workers (cited by 57 percent of respondents) and the talent shortage (56 percent) were the top supply chain challenges. This was followed closely by supply chain disruptions (54 percent), out-of-stock situations (52 percent) and customer demands (52 percent).

The worker shortage is spurring companies to invest in technologies that not only improve agility and efficiency but also reduce the need for repetitive, manual labour.

The integration of robotics into operations is seen as one solution to the labour shortage, but it’s not without challenges. “A large obstacle for organizations looking to invest in robotics is perception management. Largely, this technology is not brand-new but has matured over years to reduce errors, risk and dependency on labour,” said Jake Heldenberg, head of solution design at Vanderlande.

“Robotics are likely the next advancement