Trent Zuberi

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…

Step up your supply chain strategy by checking out all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now! On Monday, we released 2 new episodes! On this episode of Supply Chain Now, hosts Scott and Greg welcome Nicci Scott with Commercial Transport Academy and Jenny Froome with SAPICS for the next installment of the Supply Chain Across Africa series. On This Week in Business History, host Scott W. Luton sheds light on 3 historical milestones that enabled us to move faster: cars, coasters, & computers. On Tuesday, we released 2 new episodes! On this episode of TEK TOK, host Karin Bursa takes us through 6 strategies to boost resilience, agility, and response in your organization’s supply chain. On TECHquila Sunrise, we’re looking back on a “Sunrise Special” episode where host Greg White shares how venture capitalists decide which companies to invest in (and how much!). On Wednesday, host Scott Luton welcomed Deborah Dull, Supply Chain Product Management at GE Digital, and Mucai Kunyiha, Chairman of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers and Group Chief Executive Officer of Kzanaka Ltd, to the podcast. On Thursday, we released a replay of our Manufacturing Monday edition of…