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Supply Chain Now and the Reverse Logistics Association recently relaunched the Reverse Logistics Series livestream series, and we’re pleased to be featured in the Reverse Logistics Magazine for April 2021. To learn more about the relaunched series and what’s in store, read the article here. Click here to view the complete PDF of edition 113 with free registration/log-in.’

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…