Digital twin-driven adaptive supply chain
8 MINS READ
Industry
- Manufacturing
Manufacturing
Highlights
- Global manufacturers are facing critical supply chain issues due to factors such as geopolitical uncertainties and ever-changing economic scenario, and the pandemic.
- Digital twin can help the manufacturing companies build adaptive and resilient supply chains, leading to improved efficiency and cost savings.
- A digital twin-driven supply chain will help manufacturing businesses visualize the bigger picture of the overall ecosystem to boost economic growth.
In this article
The state of today’s supply chains
Rising operational costs coupled with technological advancements and elevated customer expectations have made supply chains highly complicated.
The constant demand fluctuation due to various factors such as natural disasters and regulatory changes, to name a few, lead to unprecedented supply chain delays. Further, manual collation of stock movements and consumption pattern information from standalone systems at storage points can cause efficiency dips. Supply chain operators also find it less effective to depend on assumptions for aggregate demand and replenishment plans. Underpinning the above issues, there is a prevailing lack of visibility of real-time order status in the supply chain network. This calls for an intelligent supply chain that can adapt to handle such abnormalities and ensure resilience.
Taking on the uncertainties
An adaptive supply chain using a digital twin is the key to remain competitive and resilient.
Visualization of changing conditions, real- or semi-real-time data availability, and cognitive analytics are the three key aspects of an adaptive supply chain. A supply chain digital twin is a system that integrates with a company’s network and simulates the actual supply chain to forecast potential issues and abnormal situations and generate a sustainable future action plan. Let us look at some of the common impact vectors that affect supply chains and how this system can help:
- Geopolitical uncertainties: Manufacturing value chains are highly impacted by geopolitical uncertainties, and it calls for persistent visualization of the future supply chain behavior. To remain competitive, businesses must visualize the uncertainties and preempt contingencies to minimize adverse impacts.
- Battle-tested reliability: Drawing parallels to the reliability and trust one would have on a pilot who has undergone the industry-mandated number of flight simulations, manufacturers can demonstrate better confidence while testing with a simulated supply chain. This helps them evaluate the strategic consequences of key decisions before executing them. A supply chain digital twin not only enables the evaluation of future states, but being a simulation-based decision-making tool, it enhances supply chain resilience and sustainability in the long run.
Building an intelligent ecosystem
Supply chain digital twin helps build an ecosystem with end-to-end visibility.
It creates an inherent culture of collaboration between inbound and outbound logistics and imparts cognitive intelligence – the ability to adapt to changing business climate.
By fetching real world data and modelling the physical supply chain – across sourcing, production, manufacturing, distribution, and logistics– as a single integrated data model, a supply chain digital twin opens visibility into all operational complexities. This remains a digital decisioning platform to address needs. For instance, an avatar can be set up to enable manufacturers to:
- Visualize changing priorities for key customers
- Build capacity for a massive seasonal demand pattern
- Perform warehouse consolidation based on product movement behavior
- Change service level and targets
- Design networks by evaluating strategic sourcing options
- Auto-track and optimize water usage based on consumption patterns
Alternatively, as a more cost-effective method, supply chain digital twins can fit into the existing IT landscape as micro-apps to visualize specific parts of supply chains without demanding major changes to the infrastructure.
Paving the way for futuristic manufacturing
The future of supply chain digital twins will extend beyond the current boundaries of a manufacturer.
It will help global manufacturers visualize the bigger picture of the overall ecosystem to catapult economic growth. With metaverse gaining mainstream attraction and evolving rapidly, supply chain digital twins will mature alongside, to offer an immersive experience in 3D virtual spaces. It is inevitable for manufacturing organizations to gain a head-start today, to prepare for the future of phygital operations, one where the supply chain is more connected, more automated, and more intelligent.
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