Are you ready for the NextGen Supply Chain?

When it comes to the next generation of supply chain management, the future just may be now. That’s one of the conclusions reached by Greg Gorbach, an analyst at the research firm ARC Advisory Group, after surveying supply chain executives, including subscribers to Supply Chain Management Review, on the digitization of their supply chains. In “The Great Digitization of Industry,” Gorbach notes that while it may take years for the widespread adoption of new technologies such as machine learning, additive manufacturing, smart factories and advanced analytics to become commonplace, digitization across verticals is happening faster than many of us may have realized.

At Supply Chain Management Review, we’re calling this the NextGen Supply Chain. In fact, last month we launched a new electronic newsletter of the same name. Each month, “NextGen Supply Chain” will bring you two original stories from Gary Forger, our special projects editor, on the technologies that will be shaping your supply chain today and tomorrow, along with links to articles covering topics such as artificial intelligence, Big Data, robotics and other transformative technologies. We hope you gave the first newsletter a read, found it as fascinating as we do and will continue to read it in the months to come.

Building on this transformation theme, the September issue of SCMR features a look at how Wal-Mart is transforming its supply chain to meet the omni-channel fulfillment challenge. The world’s largest retailer has clearly had some setbacks in its early e-commerce efforts, but believes it has found the right formula.

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