Ara Arslanian

What a week at Supply Chain Now! If you missed an episode, get a quick summary and listen here. On Monday, we published an excellent episode with Jon Gold, the VP of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation. Supply Chain Now · “The Voice of Retail: Jon Gold with the National Retail Federation”   On Tuesday, Scott & Greg welcomed two APICS legends to the podcast, Anthony “Z” Zampello & Fred Tolbert, for a lesson in S&OP fundamentals and best practices.   Supply Chain Now · “S&OP Fundamentals & Best Practices: Anthony “Z” Zampello & Fred Tolbert”   On Wednesday, we published this week’s Supply Chain Buzz, with an update on Hurricane Laura from Riskpulse Chief Meteorologist Jon Davis, and then covered the top news in supply chain with Kara Brown and Will Haraway with Lead Coverage.   Supply Chain Now · “The Supply Chain Buzz for August 24th Featuring Jon Davis, Kara Brown, & Will Haraway”   On Thursday, Greg welcomed Flourish CEO Colton Griffin to the TECHquila Sunrise podcast for a great conversation on the ins and outs of founding a tech company, the start-up life, and the cannabis industry.   Supply Chain Now…

Prospects of supply chain automation have the industry abuzz. It’s even become a major sticking point in the International Longshoremen’s Association contract negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance. The dockworkers do not want ports to automate processes out of fear they will lose their jobs to machines. Today, there are seemingly endless possibilities for optimization. Terms like generative artificial intelligence and machine learning have become commonplace in discussions about ways to gain efficiencies and reduce costs. Can man and machine work together as businesses leverage automation for optimization? Beyond the Buzz: Understanding the Automation Imperative Machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence (AI), is described by Business News Daily as a later-stage development in which machines take in data on their own and then analyze it. Automation, on the other hand, is fixed on repetitive tasks; after a job is performed, an automation system “thinks no further.” The Business News Daily article explained that “automation involves an entire category of technologies that provide activity or work without human involvement,” while AI involves “a machine exhibiting and practicing something similar to what we describe as human thinking – that is, the ability to interact in thousands of ways with the…