Page 6 - Logistics News Sept/Oct 2017

Opinion
Debating the timetable
for supply-chain futureshock
The future is coming. But experts can’t seem to agree on when it’s going to show
up. That, at least, was the chief takeaway from this year’s Supply Chain Predictions
Panel, an annual event presented by the San Francisco Roundtable of the Council of
Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).
EACH YEAR, the S.F. Roundtable off ers up a
select group of industry leaders, who venture
guesses about the next wave of innovations to
roil supply-chain executives. Each prediction is
then subjected to critical feedback from other
panel members, as well as from the audience.
The aff air is moderated by Carl Guardino,
president and chief executive offi cer of the
Silicon Valley Leadership Group..
Here, there, are the panel’s visions for 2018
and beyond:
Prediction: Driverless technology for
interstate trucking will be approved for
prototyping in 2018, according to T.S.
Khurana, vice president of global sourcing
and operations engineering with Facebook.
He believes automation “will disrupt the way
we move freight around this country by 2025.”
Last year, Khurana noted, there were 120,000
deaths related to big rigs on the nation’s
highways, and 95 percent of them were
ascribable to human error. The continuing
death toll will motivate regulators to move
more quickly than one might expect, he
suggested.
Response: Panelist Mike Thomas, vice
president of logistics with Grocery Outlet,
disagreed — but mostly about the timing.
“Seven years to make that happen is a little bit
too quick,” he said. The major stumbling block
will be the nature of urban transportation, in
particular the “fi nal mile” of delivery within
cities. That piece of the puzzle will still be
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By: Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain
subject to human control beyond 2025,
Thomas said, and most members of the
audience agreed.
Panelist Kerry McCracken, a former senior
vice president with Flex Connect, thought
Khurana might be on the right track after
all. She noted the rapid transformation of
society wrought by the iPhone in its 10
short years of existence. “I don’t think this is
insurmountable,” she said.
Prediction: Rumours of the death of brick-
and-mortar retailing are entirely premature,
said Thomas. “Even in 2030, people will
still be going to the grocery store.” Those
who believe otherwise are likely to reside
in the Bay Area, he suggested, which has a
blinkered view of technology. “There’s a huge
chunk of the country to the East that’s a little
bit different from what we experience out
here,” he said.
Response: Thomas received no opposition
from the panel, but some audience members
noted the growing dominance of the Amazon.
com model, whereby even the most basic
commodities can be ordered online and
delivered to homes almost instantly. Millennials
are especially fond of the practice, they said.
Prediction: Within two to three years, a large
original equipment manufacturer or supply-
chain company will be “completely upended”
by a startup entity, said McCracken. The
reason: the blockchain. The ability to create
a secure, reliable system of record within
September/October 2017 | Logistics News