SOME ASPECTS OF AUTOMATIZATION OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN

Abstract

There is a lot talk about Logistics 4.0, digital supply chain management, the blockchain, etc., but which technologies are considered under these general terms, how their development will continue to be, and what future management options will be available is not clearly determined. Logistics 4.0 supports the concept of Industry 4.0 (Smart factory) and presents the current trend of automation in data exchange in intralogistics processes and supply chains. This trend includes CPSs (Cyber-Physical Systems), networking, digitization, B2B Internet communication and Cloud-computing, public or private, (Internet databases) to enable "Smart Logistics" functioning. Within the modularly structured smart factory, cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical market, and make decentralized decisions. Through the Internet, Cyber-Physical Systems communicate and collaborate with each other in real time, offer services and/or products, and provide expected data and information to participants in the supply chain. Digital technologies as the: IoT (Internet of Things), and its subcategory IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), IoS (Internet of Services), Big Data and DM (Data Mining), and Cyber-Physical Systems are key elements of the Logistics 4.0 concept. They represent the common language of the future. It is to expect the full digitalization of logistics processes and the use of said digital technologies from creating the idea about a product or service, engineering, production organization, finance, development of online "end-to-end" visibility of processes, up to the control of the process, and to complete services providing in the logistics' supply chains.