According to a study titled, "The Smarter Supply Chain of the Future: Global Chief Supply Chain Officer Study," conducted by IBM Global Business Services' Supply Chain Management Practice in mid-2008, the supply chain of the future will have to be "instrumental, interconnected, and intelligent." Based on nearly 400 interviews with top-ranking supply chain executives representing 29 industries in 25 countries, the report suggests that supply chain professionals will be working in a highly automated world. The report states, "Inventory will count itself. Containers will detect their contents. Pallets will report if they end up in the wrong place." The respondents forecast that along with customers, suppliers, and information systems, other supply chain segments, i.e. parts, products, and the "smart" devices used to monitor the supply chain, will be tightly connected. Supply chain executives believe that in near future advanced analytics and modeling will help decision makers evaluate alternatives while taking complex risks and constraints into account. For instance, intelligent systems will make automatic decisions regarding reconfiguration of supply chain network in the event of disruptions (or for situations demanding additional manufacturing and distribution capacity), bypassing human intervention. The report says, "Equipped with sophisticated modeling and simulation capabilities, the smarter supply chain will move past sense-and-respond to predict-and-act." Chief supply chain officers will spend less time on tactical concerns and more time as strategic thinkers, collaborators, and orchestrators.
Source: "Future supply chains could be smarter that their designers." CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly, Quarter 4, 2009.