Achieving an Agile Supply Chain

Through­out the pan­dem­ic, cus­tomer buy­ing mod­els have also evolved, neces­si­tat­ing fur­ther changes to man­u­fac­tur­ing operations.
The glob­al lock­down encour­aged many indi­vid­u­als to embrace ecom­merce for the first time – rais­ing the need for com­pa­nies to flex dynam­i­cal­ly between bricks and mor­tar and ecom­merce sales. Impor­tant­ly, pack­ag­ing require­ments for ecom­merce ship­ments are very dif­fer­ent to stan­dard retail – with prod­ucts sent out in dif­fer­ent batch sizes for exam­ple – demand­ing a change to both cod­ing and the end-of-line pro­duc­tion schedule.
As we enter a sec­ond wave of the pan­dem­ic, it is also clear that con­sumers are not rush­ing back to the high street; sug­gest­ing that brands will need to dynam­i­cal­ly man­age a hybrid sales mod­el – and the asso­ci­at­ed impli­ca­tions on pack­ag­ing – for some time.
Cus­tomer expec­ta­tions with regards to prod­uct safe­ty and hygiene are also cre­at­ing new trends with­in prod­uct pack­ag­ing, trends which reverse the shift away from plas­tic that has occurred over recent years. In Italy, for exam­ple, fresh fruit and veg­eta­bles that were pre­vi­ous­ly sold loose are increas­ing­ly being wrapped in flex­i­ble plastic.
With hygiene con­cerns out­strip­ping sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals for the time being – a sit­u­a­tion that may or may not reverse over the next few months as many gov­ern­ments’ ‘green’ incen­tives come into force – com­pa­nies may need to explore dif­fer­ent pack­ag­ing solu­tions to help meet cus­tomer expectations.

Agili­ty through automation 
The eco­nom­ic pres­sures of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic are unprece­dent­ed – whether from sup­ply price vari­a­tion, the new invest­ment required to ensure work­force safe­ty, the pull to embrace ecom­merce, or the needs to stream­line prod­uct lines; each has neces­si­tat­ed sig­nif­i­cant changes to busi­ness mod­els the world over.
For com­pa­nies still reliant upon tra­di­tion­al, man­u­al pro­duc­tion process­es, the past few months have been extreme­ly chal­leng­ing. Build­ing in con­tin­gency, dynam­i­cal­ly reduc­ing SKUs, and man­ag­ing the evolv­ing bricks and mortar/ ecom­merce mix means an urgent need for control.
The nec­es­sary lev­els of con­trol and agili­ty can only be achieved by cre­at­ing trust­ed, repeat­able process­es that improve effi­cien­cy and reduce the risk of expen­sive errors – adopt­ing automa­tion in cod­ing and mark­ing is one way that man­u­fac­tur­ers can look to achieve this.
To take a recent exam­ple, one well-known food man­u­fac­tur­er – who ful­ly auto­mat­ed cod­ing through their SAP – was able to suc­cess­ful­ly elim­i­nate cod­ing errors, and sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty by remov­ing asso­ci­at­ed down­time that typ­i­cal­ly account­ed for as much as two hours each day. Sim­i­lar­ly, a major bev­er­age com­pa­ny – where gaps in cod­ing process­es had pre­vi­ous­ly led to a $40,000 recall – com­plete­ly removed human inter­ven­tion fail­ures with the intro­duc­tion of inte­grat­ed automa­tion, mit­i­gat­ing pro­duc­tion risk and increas­ing effi­cien­cy by 100%.
As well as lim­it­ing the risk of cod­ing errors and asso­ci­at­ed down­time, cod­ing automa­tion can also pro­vide man­u­fac­tur­ers with a full, seam­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion stream, and options for increased vis­i­bil­i­ty and data shar­ing. This can fuel more effi­cient oper­a­tions and pro­vide increased con­trol and agili­ty when cop­ing with changes in demand or mov­ing between ecom­merce and bricks and mor­tar prod­uct packaging.
Fur­ther­more, by automat­ing cod­ing solu­tions, man­u­fac­tur­ers can stream­line pro­duc­tion process­es, reduce down­time by improv­ing prod­uct changeovers, and ben­e­fit from greater vis­i­bil­i­ty of what is hap­pen­ing in real-time on a pro­duc­tion line. More­over, util­is­ing vision con­trol along­side cod­ing automa­tion to check codes can help to avoid unnec­es­sary waste when a prob­lem does arise.
Final­ly, cod­ing automa­tion can pro­vide man­u­fac­tur­ers with busi­ness insight that can prove essen­tial when cop­ing with an unprece­dent­ed change in demand. Under­stand­ing at a glance the num­ber of items cod­ed per day can help ensure the right amount of inven­to­ry – from pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als, to labels, inks, and make up sup­ply – every­thing required to keep pro­duc­tion lines run­ning smoothly.

Plan­ning for the future
COVID-19-relat­ed sup­ply chain chal­lenges will, hope­ful­ly, abate over time and com­pa­nies will adapt. But this is not going to be the last sup­ply chain upheaval and it remains to be seen how con­sumer behav­iour will evolve over com­ing months, even years.
One thing for sure is that in the cur­rent geo-polit­i­cal cli­mate, it is more impor­tant than ever for man­u­fac­tur­ers to remain flex­i­ble and agile, in order to respond to sud­den changes in sup­ply and demand. On mod­ern-day pro­duc­tion lines, man­u­al process­es are a bar­ri­er to suc­cess. To achieve the rapid change and adjust­ment required to respond to sup­ply chain dis­rup­tion – be it due to eco­nom­ics, weath­er, or health event – automa­tion is essential.
Cod­ing and mark­ing may not be the most imme­di­ate thing that springs to mind when you think of automa­tion in man­u­fac­tur­ing. How­ev­er, cod­ing automa­tion can play a sur­pris­ing­ly sig­nif­i­cant role in increas­ing accu­ra­cy and agili­ty on pro­duc­tion lines.
As we move beyond the cur­rent cri­sis, man­u­fac­tur­ers who take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to auto­mate their cod­ing solu­tions, and realise the ben­e­fits of enhanced con­trol and vis­i­bil­i­ty over their pro­duc­tion process­es, will find them­selves bet­ter equipped to con­tin­ue pro­duc­tion, what­ev­er the future holds.