Digitization

Companies worldwide are accelerating their adoption of advanced logistics technologies—from cloud platforms and control towers to generative and agentic AI—as they push toward higher levels of automation, autonomy, and real-time decision-making. Yet with markets, industries, and regulatory environments maturing at different speeds, success hinges on strong data foundations, selective tech investment, and a phased roadmap that builds from analytics and automation toward predictive and fully autonomous logistics capabilities.

The live event in Nashville, Tenn., featured 60-plus leaders, and also honored several companies with awards for supply chain excellence.

Artificial intelligence is not just coming at you from mega tech companies like Microsoft. It is under development among materials handling suppliers to give your operations a boost. Here’s where those efforts stand.

Here are five best practices that have emerged from the experience of the last several years.

Continuing its ongoing run of M&A activity, Waterloo, Ontario-based Descartes, a provider of logistics based on-demand, software-as-a-service offerings, said this week it has acquired Windsor, England-based BoxTop Technologies Limited, a provider of shipment management services for small-to-mid-sized logistics services providers (LSP).

Digitalization is already delivering significant advances in productivity, speed and visibility to supply chain operations. Orchestration promises to build on and amplify those benefits.

The text discusses the evolution of the digital supply chain and the rapid changes in the supply chain industry, particularly in the retail sector. It raises key issues such as meeting evolving consumer needs, embracing digital capabilities, breaking down functional silos, balancing efficiency and resiliency, creating partner ecosystem connectivity, and evolving the workforce. The text also emphasizes the importance of digital supply chains and staying alert and connected to remain competitive in the long term.

From shuttles to cube-based AS/RS systems to mobile robots, we are successfully designing, implementing and operating goods-to-person automation that improves picking speed, productivity, and accuracy.

Before you can fully embrace a predictive supply chain, you need to start implementing a data-driven strategy and approach.

Shipper demand, vendor innovation and advances in technology have worked together to get the vision of the digital supply chain over the finish line.

The last 20 months have pushed many logistics and supply chain operations to the brink, ushering in capacity, pricing, inventory, fulfillment, labor and global trade challenges that many have never seen before—and may never see again.

Get the Insight You Need Now to Become a Successful Digital Forwarder

Industry experts illustrate the six key benefits of a supply chain built off integrated solutions and how companies use them to extract the maximum efficiency from their existing assets.

The value of digitalization is only fully realized when operations across your supply chain are integrated to enable end-to-end visibility and predictive forecasting.

As we begin to turn a coronavirus corner, it is crucial that supply chain leaders work to envision what the next normal will look like. They must plan on how best to position a new beginning in order to emerge healthy and competitive.