For companies looking to simulate and optimize their supply chains, technology is getting ahead of organizations' ability to manage it. Bill Benton, chief executive officer of GAINSystems, has a solution.

Just as modern vehicle technology is spurring the development of driverless cars, supply chains are moving toward autonomous decision systems, aided by analytics and artificial intelligence, says Fred Laluyaux, president and chief executive officer of Aera Technology.

The old days of the Quality movement seem quaint in retrospect: the banners, the slogans, the prizes and team-building events. Today, quality management is all about information — or, more to the point, how to keep from getting buried in it.