SupplyChain Magazine August 2020 | Page 19

PERSONAL , AUTOMATE , LOCAL
PERSONAL , AUTOMATE , LOCAL
Reflecting on challenges and opportunities in more general terms , Palumbo considers the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic . It is , he says , “ only the latest disruptive event that is accelerating the evolution of supply chains towards collaborative ecosystems able to cope with big challenges and take advantage of them by improving their response capabilities .”
Supply chains in the future , says Palumbo , will have to take into account the concept of ‘ Personal , Automate , Local ( PAL )’, as described by transformation expert S . A . Culey . “ Personalisation and customer centricity is increasingly important . Amazon calls it ‘ customer obsession ’, and it ’ s something that we have all experienced – it ’ s set the modern benchmark ,” he explains . “ Working in the pharmaceutical industry , where customers are often patients and drugs are called ethical products , it is not difficult to get the concept .”
Automation , he notes , is driving collaboration and visibility . “ It is the end of invisible supply chains where no news means good news ,” he explains . “ In the future , customers and all the actors involved in the supply chain processes will be interested in having full visibility on the distribution processes .” Finally , Plaumbo notes , the idea of Local is driven by the concept of density of value . In terms of volumes , in the last 30 years the miniaturisation of electronic components has enabled both a noticeable technological enrichment and a reduction in size or dimensions of products . This would immediately drive a higher density of value , if it were
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