Technology adoption is a must for managing risks and disruptions.
The COVID-19 pandemic, among other things, exposed the fragility of our supply chains. Stringent lockdowns at local, regional, and national levels posed significant challenges for companies operating in the logistics and supply chain industry, pushing them to reinvent processes and explore ways to do business in the “new normal”. Technology adoption played a key role in this transformation, enabling companies to make informed decisions based on spatial information. To discuss this transformation, Geospatial World, a leading research, media, and events company in the geospatial domain, organized a virtual seminar titled “Collaborative Workflow for Geospatial Knowledge in the Logistics and Supply Chain Landscape”.
Rapid change is the new normal
“The logistics and supply chain industry is moving faster towards a new revolution powered by spatial data and the Cloud, and is embracing requirements concerning scalability, cost-efficiency, accessibility, and data multi-tenancy,” said Javier de la Torre, CEO, Carto.
Today, statistics and information on the worldwide supply of, demand for, and flow of minerals and materials has become essential for economies. Further, the drive towards faster, smaller, and smarter technology has accelerated the use of mineral commodities.
“To increase demand, global production has increased over the past few decades, especially for certain minor metals. We are developing a comprehensive compilation of geospatial information on the extraction industry of different regions in the world. When coupled with natural hazard data, this information can help improve our assessment of the potential for the mineral supply disruptions,” said Dr. Nedal Nassar, Section Chief, USGS National Minerals Information Centre.
Using Remote Sensing techniques and Machine Learning algorithms, geospatial analytics can provide real-time operational status on the world’s mines, smelters, and refineries. “The Logistics industry has grappled to keep the supply chain running under difficult circumstances, and open new ones. It’s a new world and we need new concepts. The world is changing. Everywhere you go, facial recognition and geospatial smartphones are collecting data all the time. The volume of data is quadrupling in every five years and by 2025, it is estimated to be worth 5.8% of EU GDP,” said John Kedar, Contributing Editor, Geospatial World.
Extracting value from data
During the course of the discussion, there was a broader agreement on the fact that data has no value unless it can be used to solve problems. The challenge of doing so got only tougher after the pandemic hit the world towards the end of 2019. There were several demand and supply issues and disruptions requiring immediate and informed decisions based on qualified data. However, the crisis opened many eyes in terms of the importance of data, especially location information, in sectors like logistics and supply chain, among many others. Therefore, businesses of all types and sizes are striving to adopt geospatial data and technology for better returns.
