The Benefits of Putting your Software Supply Chain Security on Autopilot
If you have a remote team having security on your software supply chain is crucial to keeping your information safe.
Businesses, now more than ever, need to learn how to adapt to an ever-shifting digital world. Unfortunately, that means a lot more problems. Every innovation is just another excuse for hackers and sabotagers to ruin your day.
A traditional mindset for supply chains no longer holds up. Automation is something that needs to be adopted by a business to survive. Today, we’ll be talking about automated supply chains, and the best way to keep them safe from attack. It’s a difficult road, but a necessary one to guarantee success.
What Is Supply Chain Automation?
A supply chain is the workflow of production to sales, in the most basic of terms. The steps are typical:
Raw Materials
Manufacturing
Storage
Inventory
Distribution
Delivery
Sales
Each of these steps can be significantly streamlined by automation. There are so many ways to make all those boring tasks go by a lot faster. The best part is that a lot of these software solutions are found online. Often for affordable prices. A few examples are:
Data Entry
Machine Learning
Predictive Flowcharts
Spreadsheet Analysis
Warehouse Robotics
GPS Routing
Automated Security Benefits
It’s not just the process itself that can be automated. Nowadays, even the security of software is remotely managed. So long as you have a device, of course. Sites such as GitHub offer so many open-source security systems and general advice. Automating security ensures that there are no gaps in the defense of your supply chain’s defenses. In other words, you’re not worrying about hackers anytime soon.
Securing Your Business Remotely
Although the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world to its core, a few silver linings revealed themselves. The primary benefit is the revelation that remote work is just as effective as working in an office. Sure, it’s not like remote work is all positive, but it’s got its advantages over traditional office work.
The setup of a remote security system is great. It means that it’s viewable from anywhere at any time. “Main offices” aren’t even a thing for certain businesses, so making the security system “mobile” is proving useful. In any case, make sure to talk in-depth with your IT team about these projects.
Benefits of Automated Security
Speed
Without a doubt, this is the primary reason for automation. There are so many menial tasks involved with the supply chain. Anything that makes them go by faster is a blessing, and automation reduces minutes of work to mere seconds. This can be anything from data analysis to the sorting of inventory with warehouse robotics.
Think about how much time you could save if you didn’t have to retype the same boring things over and over again on some ancient Excel spreadsheet. Now, a robot can do all of that for you, and probably with far more accuracy. Speaking of which-
Reduce Error Frequency
Human error is, unfortunately, something that every business has to face. It’s only natural since we aren’t computers. While computers are certainly capable of errors themselves, the speed at which they do it means humans can easily spot when something is wrong. One thing that should be noted is that automation isn’t just “replacing” jobs.
Reduce Employee Turnover
It’s true that some jobs become redundant when they get automated. However, these open up new positions for things that need a human touch. No longer will employees be drones that do menial tasks that they don’t need to be doing. Humans need something challenging to work on. In turn, this reduces employee turnover by a lot.
Cost-Efficient
Automation may have a larger upfront cost than hiring someone, but it will pay itself back in dividends the longer you stick with it. Time is money, as they say, and automation is good at optimizing both.
Yes, there’s going to be a maintenance cost for the systems involved, but that only needs a core team. Instead of a bunch of different employees, you can now just talk to the lead guy for 99% of meetings, leaving the team free to do more important things.
Transparency
One of the common problems with the supply chain is finding out where something went wrong. That leads to people pointing fingers at each other, and that doesn’t solve anything. With automation software, the root cause of an error is very quickly spotted.
Not only that, you’ll know where the error happened, so you know who to reprimand (if needed). Vice versa, it also gives the employees confidence because they’ll know for sure they’re blameless. Conference rooms will be a lot less tense when people know where they stand.
Final Words
Putting the security system of your supply chain on autopilot is awesome. Still, that doesn’t make it any less complicated. The benefits are wonderful, but constant maintenance and regular updates need to be done. Even autopilot still needs someone behind the wheel when something goes wrong. Thankfully, the “steering wheel” is anywhere with a device.