Three stages are commonly used to categorize an organization's maturity in their use of business intelligence and analytics technologies: Descriptive, or what happened in the past? Predictive, or what will (probably) happen in the future? Prescriptive, or what should we do to change the future?
ABI Research forecasts that revenues from maintenance analytics will total $9.1bn this year. Following a CAGR of 22 percent, the market’s size will reach $24.7bn in 2019, driven largely by adoption of predictive analytics and M2M connectivity.
The "lights-out warehouse" is a little like Bigfoot: a mythical idea everyone in the material handling industry has heard about but few have actually seen. It's been a buzzword for years, yet just a handful of companies have made the leap to a fully automated distribution center, despite abundant indications that it would increase efficiency and profit margins.
At the beginning of 2013, Williams-Sonoma outlined four key areas of focus: strengthening its brands, laying the foundation for global expansion, investing in supply chain and investing in the technologies and infrastructure that underlay all these initiatives.
Several industrial linen companies in the United Kingdom and France are testing a new RFID tag that is literally woven into a textile or fabric product, which could hamper counterfeiters and thieves.
A huge increase in the number of devices making up the Internet of Things (IoT) will have a significant impact on how the supply chain will operate, according to a report by analyst firm Gartner.
Product lifecycle management (PLM) and product design have been applications that have been slow to move to the cloud, for a number of reasons. But as companies increasingly switch on to the flexibility, scalability and affordability that cloud platforms offer, so adoption has increased.
Companies operating in Indonesia may spend as much as $160bn to move goods, materials and merchandise to and from Southeast Asia's largest economy this year, according to Frost & Sullivan, an industry tracker.
Procurement leaders are expanding their priorities for 2014, moving beyond a historic emphasis on reducing purchase costs and adding focus on expanding and deepening the scope of spend influence as well as supporting supplier-led product innovation, according to 2014 Procurement Key Issues research from The Hackett Group Inc.
Analyst Insight: With the rise of e-commerce, higher customer expectations and skyrocketing transportation costs, the business case for automation has changed. It's not just about accuracy and labor savings anymore. It's also about the incremental revenue and competitive advantage that comes from improving customer service and better managing inventory. – Frank Jewell, Food & Beverage Industry Leader, Fortna Inc.