Companies have made tremendous strides in automating transaction processing and data capture related to supply chain and logistics operations. While these innovations have reduced cost by reducing manual effort, their most significant impact is yet to come. They are the essential enablers for optimising supply chain and logistics decisions. Supply chain and logistics optimisation are neither easy nor cheap, but it is the most significant opportunity for most companies to reduce their cost and improve their performance significantly. For most supply chain and logistics operations, there is an opportunity to reduce cost by making better decisions. More than 30 years have been spent developing and implementing supply chain and logistics technology. The following factors in Figure 2 are seen to be essential requirements for success based upon the last 30 years.
Figure 2: Factors in the Use of Logistics Resources