Digital Twin Supply Chains

Pallet Centralent

Creating resilience in a business climate where changes only ever seem to be accelerating has never been more crucial than it is today. Fortunately, with the advent of data gathering processes like Big Data and exciting new technologies like IoT, using advanced supply chain analysis to adjust to disruptions and stay agile is becoming accesible than ever.

However, even the most advanced forward analytics can still result in unforeseeable complications in asset management, track and trace order processing, and overall supply chain cohesion. When even the data doesn’t prevent unpredictable obstacles to your progress, should you simply accept the risk as a natural part of business as usual?

Fortunately, you don’t have to. The rise of the digital twin model, integrated into supply chain development today, promises to render everything from asset management to knowing how many wood pallets to load per journey that much easier.

In this exclusive Pallet Central Enterprises blog post, we explore an exciting new concept in supply chain management called digital twin technology and its application.

What is a digital twin supply chain?

Understanding the value proposition of this supply chain innovation means first having a better understanding of how a digital twin strategy works.

Essentially, by leveraging track and trace systems, Big Data, IoT and the overall interconnectedness of the modern supply chain, a digital twin supply chain is an approach in asset management that experiments with simulated models.

A digital copy of every asset under an organization’s ownership is created in a virtual representation. This virtual computer model enables companies to simulate the deployment, utilization, and capabilities of a given asset, vehicle, or product using real-world data to simulate disruptions and events that may affect operations and enable the organization to adjust their strategy.

For a supply chain, it is a similar method. The idea is to optimize and build resilience against unexpected events and disruptions – which have become a huge headache to even the most seasoned supply chain operators.

The digital twin of a supply chain offers a simulation based on real-time data that allows optimization against challenges such as staff shortages, adverse weather, supplier failures, or track and trace errors.

This virtual modeling allows for planning that is far safer and more cost-effective than deploying new strategies in the real-world. Utilizing a digital twin first means that any unexpected delays or hurdles affect only the virtual supply chain – meaning that changes and deployment in the actual supply chain are tested and more likely to be effective.

As digital twin technology advances to take advantage of IoT and track and trace inventory management processes, a granular level of information and data is being unlocked – current technology allows for this approach down to each wooden pallet, roll of packaging material, or optimizing fuel levels in a vehicle fleet.

As well as optimizing the supply chain for more effective risk management, digital twin technology can help business leaders to better understand where inefficiencies are creating potential bottlenecks in the existing framework.

A simulation model program to optimizing and improving supply chain operations can improve the overall approach to asset management – a digital twin enables you to simulate what a given investment in vehicles, packaging materials, or track and trace solutions can unlock for the organization, without the capital outlay otherwise required to explore such options in reality.

Pioneers in digital twin supply chain systems are emerging all the time – with case studies that make for compelling and persuasive reading. In a recent supply chain digital twin whitepaper, an organization explained how effectively this technology was able to measure, analyze, and connect data that led to swift decision-making for one of its client’s supply chain systems.

Every day in the supply chain is filled with variables that make reliance on hunches and one size fits all strategies less effective than ever and unlocking the power of a novel technology solution seems like the billion dollar answer to a nagging question.

The agility and resilience unlocked by digital twin technology, both in asset management and supply chain planning, is creating a powerful new paradigm for those business leaders ready and willing to unlock its potential. Digital twin supply chain technologies may just be the answer to staying proactive and prepared in a supply chain that is increasingly more challenging to predict.

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