Faced with shrinking margins, intense competitive pressures, and ever increasing customer demands, manufacturers and distributors are looking for technology solutions that can increase operational efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and propel them securely into the future. To meet this challenge, many companies are turning to technology solutions for the supply chain that extend the current business systems in place. These solutions lead to increased efficiency in day-to-day operations and enable new levels of customer satisfaction to be reached. They also typically utilize or leverage mobile devices and technology to optimize system performance and provide an increase in efficiency.
The Yankee Group's report on mobility trends states, "According to a recent survey of 319 companies, 40 percent of today's workforce is mobile, defined as spending at least 20 percent of their time away from their primary workspace."
This technology shift towards mobility is still in its infancy. As this revolution accelerates, the following trends in mobility within the supply chain will become reality for manufacturers and distributors:
- Cost of technology
- Standardization of system integration
- Increased regulation
- Real-time field communications
- Radio frequency identification (RFID)
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