Digital Logistics (The Past, The Present, and The Future)

In this particular time frame that we are living in is the fast-paced lives. The complete infrastructure of this world has exponentially grown in the last 30 years as the internet has exploded. A lot of technologies are still in making which would manipulate the current face of the society even more. The growth rates are haphazard but the changes are promising.

Words like Machine Learning, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies are currently the buzz words on everyone’s mind. These industries are in chaos mode right now where everything is evolving so fast that it is getting hard to keep a track of everything. The chaos mode will settle down in a few years but till then we will be observing drastic changes happen in very little time.

The Internet has increased created so many possibilities as so many sectors have flourished. One such industry that has observed huge paradigm shifts in Logistics. Logistics is defined as the business of transporting, supplying, and delivering goods. The communication and collaboration potential of the Internet as we know it today, are improving logistics strategies, processes, and systems. Digital Logistics has helped save millions of dollars of operating costs, achieving better supply chain integration, and increasing market power through customer-focused fulfillment.

The sole reason to see such a boom in E-commerce websites is Digital Logistics. The most important features which are now introduced due to it are:

• Improved Distribution of Goods: Tracking goods and the ability to distribute them all over the world has made it so easy to scale up businesses and targeting the Global Market. Real-time Warehouse Management System(WMS) technology has played a vital role in providing this feature.
• Improved Transportation: Automation in load building and optimization of inbound and outbound freight movements and efficient management of carriers, in general, are the features which we now have at our use because of the Digital Logistics.

Digital Logistics provides the transparency of data and end-to-end visibility in inventory, orders, and shipments across the supply chain. All the information is accessible online and that allows people to filter information and gain comprehensive knowledge on problems if any. Everything becomes easy to track with GPS technology. Any parcel could be tracked from anywhere and even slight delays in the delivery of parcels could be known immediately. And if there is a need for rerouting, it can be done as soon as possible.

One of the crucial factors in moving to digital logistics is the need for flexibility to integrate with newer systems to communicate information, synchronize activities, and collaborate across processes. The gadgets of IoT keep on updating and thus the latest devices are something that needs to be installed to get new parameters in the data. But that’s the current issues with IoT which can be solved when we are at the peak of the device up-gradation.

Digital applications are based on a central repository of all logistics information. Stakeholders can view information, add or modify details. This concept could be totally revolutionized with the concept of blockchain which would provide a decentralized way of storing data and would also provide much better security of data.

The incorporation of groundbreaking research like data analytics, data sciences, and machine learning are used in logistics, along with the digital know-how, to enhance the technologies and processes. People study previous data and come to conclusions on strategies.

Hence we could conclude that we could get a much better facilities thanks to the growing industry of Digital Logistics. The integration of drones, usage of cryptocurrencies, and a lot of factors could completely change the world we are living in even currently. The possibilities are endless and the future is exciting!!