Report: 85 percent of supply chain professionals plan to invest in technology to boost productivity

According to a new report from Ivanti Wavelink, supply chain professionals are looking to technology to help with labor issues.

The report “Heavy Lift: Supply Chain Trends for 2023” found that technology will increasingly play a part in productivity to deal with labor challenges. The survey found that respondents were concerned about labor shortages and enabling worker productivity. Time to train workforce (52 percent) and high turnover (50 percent) were the challenges respondents mentioned the most, followed by the need for digital upskilling (41 percent).

“With the current shortage of available labor, many industries are better equipping their teams with technologies that help them optimize workflow. By embracing technology to help streamline operational efficiency, organizations can increase productivity, reduce costs, save time, and improve customer satisfaction,” said Brandon Black, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Ivanti Wavelink. “Additionally, by implementing technology and automation that uses real-time data, companies can gain end-to-end visibility that allows them to evaluate information more efficiently and be more agile in mitigating issues.”

The report said 85 percent of organizations plan to invest in new technology and/or build on existing technology in the coming year, and more than half (53 percent) said they intend to increase automation by up to 30 percent.

Hand-held mobile computers with barcode scanners (58 percent) and tablets (50 percent) were the most used tools cited. Respondents said reliability/uptime (69 percent) is the biggest consideration when evaluating new tech to implement, but the ease of deployment (67 percent), ease of learning (63 percent), and adaptability (63 percent) are also concerns.