Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia

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…

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now! We started this week off with a very special episode of Supply Chain Now. Host Scott Luton and special co-host Allison Giddens get to converse with a pair of very powerful women in the manufacturing business. Scott and Allison talk with Stacey Schroeder the President and Founder of EVelop; and the Value Improvement Project Engineer at Polaris Industries, Coral Huffmaster. Together they discuss the Key Takeaways from the 2021 Women in Manufacturing Summit. For Monday’s This Week In Business History episode, Kelly Barner explores a car invention that was created over 120 years ago. On Tuesday, we released a new episode of Supply Chain Now with Scott Luton and Greg White. This episode features two of Manhattan Associates’ reputable representatives. Rob Schaefer the Vice President of Transportation Management Sales and Gregg Lanyard the Director of Product Management for Manhattan Associates. During this episode, they all offer their perspectives on the supply chain outlook for 2022. On Wednesday we released an episode of Logistics With Purpose with host Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter. This episode features Michael Broidy the Senior…