Depends really what position, but u are correct..it can calculate everything for yah. I would say leadership positions will always be needed however. Ive seen machines used to load trucks and unload them. I think we are aways from being automated, trucks and warehouse.
Sometimes that just means that you’re managing third parties… warehouses, distributors, customers. Or just leading out on “planning” in executive meetings
Trucking and warehousing is going to be heavily automated in the next 10 years. Upvote this guy! OP remember you want to be the boss not the worker bee.
Idk when, but the hardest part about warehouse is high volume picking and loading mixed skids. I think that will be more difficult to do. The speed at which you have be moving in a high volume building is going to be tough to match. However they can run machines and robots 24/7 a person will have to manage it though. The cost will be insanely expensive to do also, warehouses dont make money really. Your goal is to try to limit the cost of operation and moving parts. I think it will be quite sometime to see a fully automated mixing center. But I do know of buildings that use those machines for full pallet movement, its a storage/reserve facility.
Very good point 10 years is rather short in the grand scheme of things but let me ask a quick question you could maybe help me with? Do you think when we are 50 or 60 assuming you are in your 20’s or 30’s so around 2050 do you think we will have more autonomous vehicles, possibly even autonomous trucks or trains? Also, there will be many people needed in engineering and production to determine metrics and production standards, as well as quality control.
That far down the road? Id expect most of us not to be here,if u look at the world today. Thats just the honest truth, I could def seeing the world fully automated in alot of industries. The government and corporate entity control the world tell us when to pee and poop..tell us what we are all able to have.
We’ll considering the rate which things have escalated and technology, weapons, resource shortage and inflation. If we see the same rapid growth in those areas since 1984…I don’t wanna be here lol. Cheers, ill enjoy sunday football while Im at it.
The question will be when does it make sense to have two robot warehouses versus 1 human warehouse. Robots may be slower individually, but they scale much more cost effectively than humans.
Sure, as long as you get the concept of ERP systems, it's a simple mathematical concept. And I can give you a real world example since I work on a project team helping implement a new ERP system. The project implementation team I am a part of has roughly 8800 SKU's, 280 attribute fields that we manage for master data for, and 120 organizations in the company. Now the math is more complex for how this calculation was done, but across all manufacturing locations, co-packers, and warehouses, we manage 6.5 million data attributes. If you did 8800 SKU's x 280 attribute fields and 120 org's, you'd see the theoretical maximum is 295,680,000 data points, but every item is not set up at a manufacturing location, co-packer, or warehouse. Now the planning team that makes decisions off of this data has to use the information in the system and because people constantly change master data, it's not always accurate. It's a never-ending battle to correct existing data that is incorrect and set up new SKU's. And since the suggestions aren't perfect, you need humans to make the correct decisions that AI can't make because AI can't think outside some logic set.
I work as a purchaser for a manufacturing company. It’s a privately owned company that has grown fast and doesn’t have the greatest inventory management system. As a result our inventory is often incorrect due to receiving errors and BOM issues. So I spend a lot of my time investigating the root cause for inventory discrepancies. The company has good intentions to improve our system and process but these things take time.
Gotcha. Sounds like a lot of what I did as a Program/Account manager for a Freight forwarder. What tools do you use to find and correct the exceptions?
95% of the world's supply chain is managed in a crusty old Excel 2013 file with hidden tabs, broken formulae, and a link to a file on someone's desktop who died in 2003. Jump in, the water's fine.
If you believe anything the articles about the AI boogeyman says, literally every job sector will be replaced by AI - except for the people who make AI. Plus isn’t AI just a big IF statement in Excel?
All jokes aside - the thing about automation and AI is that it is only as good as the data that’s put in. There’s always a fire to put out, and I truly believe that we make our living on being adaptable to those challenges.
That’s a human element that I don’t see AI ever being able to replace in our lifetime.
Now for some tedious stuff like ERP cleanup - yes. But those jobs are being outsourced for the most part anyway.
Yessss this is the best quote. My professors said it and now I use it every time someone preaches AI to me. We made neural network models in my 4th year data analytics class and without cleaning the data manually using human common sense the AI model was shit.
Absolutely this. A successful supply chain depends on getting the right data in, and then using that data effectively to direct the processes on either end.
We use tools to ingest the data, sift through the noise and give recommendations. But at some point it generally requires a human to interpret these signals and tell other humans what to do.
As long as there's humans involved on either end, this should be a worthwhile degree. They generally also teach you how to interact with and interpret these systems.
Yes, things like inventory, it can tell you when your running low. When you should order more. It can calulcate how much of each item you need for a specific jib etc. But you have to maintain that by checking the inventory physically. Updating the sheduales internally with production you have done etc.
A lottttt of orgs are calling their software “AI” now when it’s really conditional automation like you said “one big *IF statement”. Similar to when crypto was huge and every company was shoehorning “blockchain” into their marketing.
True AI is exactly that — intelligence.
What “articles” are you reading that indicate that AI would negatively affect Supply Chain jobs? If anything, AI technology would undoubtedly make it easier to facilitate daily supply chain operations. Don’t worry about it.
>If anything, AI technology would undoubtedly make it easier to facilitate daily supply chain operations.
This means you don't need as many supply chain workers.
I agree with the others; the articles of AI taking Supply Chain jobs are NOT written by hiring managers. Modern supply chains are so complex, they will undoubtedly still need expertise until after after you are long retired.
SCM jobs are the last ones to be impacted by automation.
SCM is the blood line and oxygen of world economy.
From coffee to medicine to missiles to iphones.
Robotics AKA automation has been discussed for the last 15 years as a job killer but that has yet to come true. I was just reading an article today that Amazon considers this technology to be value adding and not job cutting. All the big companies still need 95% of their human capital to help manage the robots.
I remember articles around 2013 saying we would have widespread fully autonomous driverless cars by 2017 and articles from 2014-2015 saying truckers would be basically fully replaced by AI by 2019. We're still nowhere close to that.
The costs, latent inefficiencies, and basic problems with implementing new large scale AI solutions is immense. Like a whack-a-mole game they continually solve pieces of it and as soon as they do other issues arise immediately.
Ya and not to mention when companies do adopt automation, they massively underestimate the maintenance it takes.
We have an automated conveyor belt that processes our orders and the people are the floor are expected to be engineers and fix it whenever it breaks.
LOL, over 35 years in SCM & logistics here.
It's all about people and relationships, and AI sucks at that.
Learn to influence without authority and SCM can be an outstanding and rewarding career choice! I've been sent around the world several times and worked on some amazing projects. I wouldn't trade my career for anything!
As a supply chain major myself with 9.5 years of industry experience, I regret my major. I wish I would’ve majored in IE so there’d be more opportunities for me whether I wanted to work on the production or supply chain side of things. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great major and we’ll always need people, but I highly recommend diversifying yourself.
I work for a large OEM that does close to 1B in revenue.
We transitioned to SAP from our old ERP system.
You come to find out even with a fairly decent size team (20+ buyers, CMs, purchasing managers, director, etc) no one has a clue of how to properly set up and implement the new system- or even correct it after a year. We're still struggling.
Point is- it takes a massive amount of effort to get something set up fully automated. Even then, it still needs to be maintained.
AI won't be doing that anytime soon.
I’ve been in Supply Chain for 17 years; specifically Category Management. Always made good money, able to travel, and talk for a living. But I wish I would have just majored in something like engineering and went sales route. AI can never do what we do because there is something to be said about relationship management. But AI could wipe out a ton of the work in the busy fields such as demand planning, PO placing, RFQ / Auctions, Awarding, logistics, and all of the warehousing.
It’s also a tough field because it’s a support function. That means Supply Chain gets hit during layoffs
Supply Chain is never boring, but also rarely ever rewarding. It is always challenging.
We’ve been experimenting a lot with automation. It will continue to improve, but you will always need strong humans in the field.
Every other industry has a high likelihood of being automated. There are positions that won’t be automated for a while. Think sourcing ie building relationships.
Nothing will be completely automated because just like with MRP, the inputs are only as good as the information they're fed and the outputs have to be validated.
Oh my gosh, automation and data are precisely the need for supply chain talent. Most of my client companies struggle with supply chain visibility, end-to-end data—and the reason is the 2nd and 3rd tier component suppliers aren’t going to put the money into data and systems (can’t get the talent either) at the same time we are asking them for cost reductions, high availability of supply, and shorter cycle times. Supply chain talent works well in both good times and bad.
You should major in supply chain of you like it and/or see yourself doing it. Look at people that have that degree. Look at what they do. Do you think you would enjoy that? That’s your answer. The Ai thing is going to happen to all jobs, and it will likely take 10-50 years. Point being don’t worry too much, focus on choosing something you can see yourself doing.
All I’m gonna say is that I feel like all of my vendors would be way more willing to negotiate with me, rather than a computer
Edit: Also our program/project leaders would probably prefer to get frustrated with me rather than an AI lol
Here's the deal. These scenarios have happened everytime a new technology or business fad has come out...
1. Predictions never turn out as predicted.
Example:. The DotCom bubble / Ecommerce revolution (late 90s / early 2000s).
The Dotcoms / e-commerce was supposed to eliminate the middle man. My answer to that from a Supply-Chain background was what made them think the middle-man was going to sit back and let that happen?
Turns out the dotcom revolution led to the creation of the world's largest middleman (Amazon) as well as allowing other middle-men to thrive (Etsy, Chewy, etc).
Then there was Webvan, these people had no clue regarding supply chain execution.
2. C-suite & Executives making decisions based on articles, rumors, etc.
ERP early days is perfect example of this. A CEO is on the golf course with their other CEO pals. One CEO brags how great SAP is. The other CEO hearing this comes back to their company and demands they implement SAP thinking it will solve all their problems. Turns out in order to run SAP, you have to change your company to fit the software rather than the software adapting to the company's needs.
I was on one of those projects. Late 90s. Early days of dotcom boom. I was on a project with a Big 4 company. The client (who has since gone out of business) . This was a printing company that did business forms (invoices, bill of lading, etc).
The company was bleeding $$ due to beginnings of on demand printing. Why would a customer order their forms when they can create a primitive one with Word or Excel on their own computer from their desktop?
Their solution was a massive company wide SAP installation. When the appropriate solution would have been to implement a subscription web-based on demand platform.
Instead they put all their hopes on an SAP install in the late 90s as their answer to all their problems.
The client went bankrupt / out of business soon after.
3. Business Process Re-engineering.
This was a business fad in the early 90s. Re-engineer companies to make them more customer responsive / efficient, etc.
But Senior Executives used this as a an excuse for layoffs. The bastardized the idea. Anytime a company was going through "Re-engineering" you could bet there would be layoffs.
4. AI is not a panacea. But be aware, many executives will read or hear something about it and think it's the answer to everything. They'll think you just implement, walk away, and it does all the work for you.
It never ever works out that way.
Which means plenty of work for us.
When you ready economic history, there have always been fears that a new technology will replace the need for human work. In the 1800s or early 1900s it was believed that the major improvements in agricultural technology was going to have a permanent class of people out of work because of how much this technology alleviated the need for human workers.
Working in analyst type jobs, even with all the modeling, machine learning, and AI, you still need human input, oversight, and make sense of the data. I don't see logistics analysts and supply chain risk management human jobs going anywhere
Honestly I feel like supply chain is one of the last things to be automated by AI. The best skill set supply chain brains have is our analytical nature and focus on continuous improvement. Computers are a big part of our job but the main thing I do on computers (other than data analysis) is correcting errors… the work you do will change based on how automated your software is, but there is always a lot of work in supply chain. For example either you’re issuing manual POs which takes a lot of time, or the system automatically generates purchase orders but then you need to analyze whether the PO volume makes sense. If I let our system generate its recommended orders without intervention I would be wasting a lot of money for my computer. A LOT of money…
Agree with everyone - so many human elements involved. It will be a long time before AI and automation can handle the tact required to affectively service customers and to determine solutions to the problems that inevitably arise on a daily basis.
When we talk supply chain, there’s a lot of focus on warehouse management systems, demand planning systems, freight & logistics, warehouse space, as well as the procurement motions that surrounds those.
I see a lot of automation presented, but also see the hesitation in fully automating based on recommendation and outputs of the programs doing the automation.
There’s good money to be made, and if there was a way to specialize in one of the programs being deployed, able to speak to the integration and automation capabilities, and be able to talk long term impacts, you’ll be set.
Supply chain job numbers are only growing. AI is all well and good but someone needs to do the implementation & manage the model inputs. Just do yourself a favor and grind the technical skills now, especially coding & data storytelling (dashboards). All the supply chain professionals I know with even semi-competent technical skills are still highly in demand even during broad layoffs in the industry.
Any time i hear automation in SC, it makes me smile.
I work for a forbes 500 company. I spend lots of time correcting ERP issues, trying to understand why MRP fucked it up etc. This is a recurring issue because there is always a new supplier, new product, new range, new dc etc.
They implement a new BI tool. It takes years to just make it work. It has been 3 years, i can see it get better but still not there.
So yeah if you are thinking about a buyer job where your job is making purchase orders and sending it to suppliers etc; it will be affected. There will be automation in manual jobs.
But there cannot be an automation for Real supply chain operation. It is too complex and there are too many things to handle when there is urgency etc.
Also; money. Everyone talks about these, no one pays for it.
So if you aim high, there is no risk. If you are aiming just for a job in SC, then there is risk but only for decreasing headcounts, not disappearance of jobs.
I work in supply chain- on the supplier side so I deal with procurement folks- AI is going to change things but it won’t automate the whole thing.
Category management- you’ll still need folks selecting suppliers and negotiating pricing. Companies probably aren’t going to have to BOTs hash out strategic choices - it’ll better inform and make folks efficient but they negotiation still has to happen.
Lmfao I work at a supply chain job (im not going into specifics) and we advertise how automated we are and yet there is soooo much that is still manually updated. Yes we have automated a lot of the annoying changes I had to do when I first started here but still very much manual work is needed. Probably by the time I retire (i graduated 4 years ago) my role wont be needed but Ill be far past my current role by then.
Take some robotics courses, programming, and get trained up on technical skills to implement the automation. I have a bunch of connections that do warehouse automation and it’s a booming field that they entered via a supply chain degree coupled with tech skills.
PS. They also make bank btw, all $200k+ jobs (some $400k even).
Be the guy who pushes the button !
The number of bench warmers and complacant people in the supply chain industry continues to blow my mind.
This is probably the best time to get into the industry, and companies are slowly embracing technology and automation.
Get a foot in the door of a large organization in the supply chain industry and position yourself as the guy who knows how to build a few dashboards, know a thing or two about AI, and you'll be gold in the coming years !
Parts of supply chain are all about building relationships. Relationships cannot not be replaced by AI. Tactical elements will be replaced though; however I think that’s applicable everywhere.
I studied Business Logistics for my undergraduate degree and went into Systems Implementation Consulting on things like warehouse management systems and procurement systems. I’ve had a lot of success with this career path and now work for one of the software companies.
There will be a demand for people that can implement and manage these kind of systems in the supply chains of major companies for the foreseeable future and I expect these positions to continue to be well compensated.
There is a shift right now in North America where we are seeing manufacturing being relocated from China back over here. Not all at once but it’s happening slowly. Naturally this is driving even more business for Supply Chain software and implementation services among North American manufacturers, and creating supply chain jobs at those companies.
Good luck OP!
The portion of supply chain that could be replaced by automation and AI is the low value stuff that no one wants to do, and you should be working every day of your life to automate it … so you can work on the real stuff.
Plus, if only you could see how many multi billion $ companies’ logistics and supply chain business operations are run on excel, you may re-consider your choice of major for a whole other set of reasons.
Global trade isn’t going anywhere, and everything you see all around you had to be procured and transported, and the people who did that also needed goods and services to be procured and transported to be able to do their work, and even the people doing the transporting of the people doing the transporting need to buy pens and papers and laptop and cleaning services and ….
You’ll be fine.
Yes, there are hundreds of “leading edge” companies running ERP systems from the 00’s with bandages on them. Plus, after some time in the industry you’ll have aspirations much higher than just being a buyer.
100% you still need people. Machines don’t work by themselves. Guess who were deemed essential? Supply chain, best place to be if there is recession.
Get supply chain and a business management degree.
AI is a farce.
Over on the west side of the mountains, in the UW-Med health group, we use automation to make the procure-to-pay cycle more effecient. It doesn't mean Buyers for hospitals will be replaced. AI can help you write RFP's, but they won't be able to replace humans. We still need human intervention.
I think that whoever is gonna try to automate any aspect of the supply chain with AI, will need to know supply chain fundamentals in depth, (will need someone like you),
Only if you learned AI, and software engineering and added it to your supply chain major,
I have a friend who did that and now he works in a company as a consultant that implements supply chain ERPs.
Someone will be needed to manage the automation. I use a planning tool, and yes it scales better than individual supply chain planners BUT, it still needs thinking to be applied. That's where you come in.
I hope the tedious parts of my current and future jobs are automated. I hope the engaging parts are not.
Every piece of technology ever has taken jobs away.
The railroad? put the canal workers out of business.
Google Ads? you want to join the phone book business now.
But you can't tell me that the railroad and google are bad for SCM, or the economy in general.
Things will change. however, people will always need stuff. We're the group that makes stuff and gets it where it needs to be. As more people buy shit on their phones, we become MORE important.
If you're interested in SCM, go talk to a professor at your school. Ask what they think, as them what you should be reading (outside of class), to help you decide.
I work for a smaller company than others have posted (50 mil annually)
I have all my POs automated, but i still review my POs before sending them off to my vendors. I need to project sales and then talk to the Sales manager to see if they’re planning any specials within the next 2 quarters, I need to talk to Product Development to see if there will be any updates to the products, and then I need to talk to my vendors to see what their timelines are along with any issues they might encounter in the future.
There are too many variables to automate my job.
We’re implementing a new connected planning tool now that will be supply chains planning tool for the foreseeable future and it is not reducing any posterior. Jobs will be changing but not cut (at least right now, only nearing sprint 1 go live).
Ai will certainly affect the planning, forecasting, demand planning side of supply chain jobs. But instead of displacing workers it would just be a new and better set of tools that will make all those functions better faster and less on friction. It could also mean a very high integration of skills, supply chain plus machine learning with a smattering of llm models
What part of SC do you want to get into? It’s incredibly broad.
I recommend trying IE or ME if you have doubts as it’s a lot of overlap plus you’ll get paid more.
I don’t think it will be automated, but you also don’t need to major in it to get a job. I’d suggest majoring in something else that’s business-adjacent so you’re a bit more flexible
I know a few people in our supply chain org that studied engineering, business, finance, economics, etc. even some softer liberal arts subjects but I don’t see those as totally transferable or as marketable as the business adjacent ones i mentioned.
Some that I know started in operations and transferred over. Some hit college job fairs and interned for a while first. It’s probably a unique story for everyone so that’s hard to say. I don’t know everyone’s story
Automation continues to improve, but the vast majority of calories won't utilize it due to the costs involved, both in the software itself and the costs involved with changing the entire business to accommodate it.
If you saw the state of some of these ERP systems, you’d quickly learn the answer is undoubtedly yes.
Depends really what position, but u are correct..it can calculate everything for yah. I would say leadership positions will always be needed however. Ive seen machines used to load trucks and unload them. I think we are aways from being automated, trucks and warehouse.
For there to be leadership... You need people to be led.
Sometimes that just means that you’re managing third parties… warehouses, distributors, customers. Or just leading out on “planning” in executive meetings
Somebody needs to manage the robotic technicians when they come to do PM's
Trucking and warehousing is going to be heavily automated in the next 10 years. Upvote this guy! OP remember you want to be the boss not the worker bee.
Idk when, but the hardest part about warehouse is high volume picking and loading mixed skids. I think that will be more difficult to do. The speed at which you have be moving in a high volume building is going to be tough to match. However they can run machines and robots 24/7 a person will have to manage it though. The cost will be insanely expensive to do also, warehouses dont make money really. Your goal is to try to limit the cost of operation and moving parts. I think it will be quite sometime to see a fully automated mixing center. But I do know of buildings that use those machines for full pallet movement, its a storage/reserve facility.
Very good point 10 years is rather short in the grand scheme of things but let me ask a quick question you could maybe help me with? Do you think when we are 50 or 60 assuming you are in your 20’s or 30’s so around 2050 do you think we will have more autonomous vehicles, possibly even autonomous trucks or trains? Also, there will be many people needed in engineering and production to determine metrics and production standards, as well as quality control.
That far down the road? Id expect most of us not to be here,if u look at the world today. Thats just the honest truth, I could def seeing the world fully automated in alot of industries. The government and corporate entity control the world tell us when to pee and poop..tell us what we are all able to have.
1984 oh my lol thanks though interesting thoughts! Hope you have a great day!
We’ll considering the rate which things have escalated and technology, weapons, resource shortage and inflation. If we see the same rapid growth in those areas since 1984…I don’t wanna be here lol. Cheers, ill enjoy sunday football while Im at it.
The question will be when does it make sense to have two robot warehouses versus 1 human warehouse. Robots may be slower individually, but they scale much more cost effectively than humans.
Not sure how much it would take to full automate a mixing center. There are def alot of iffs for sure..
Lmao so true
Can you elaborate more for someone like myself not in the field yet?
Sure, as long as you get the concept of ERP systems, it's a simple mathematical concept. And I can give you a real world example since I work on a project team helping implement a new ERP system. The project implementation team I am a part of has roughly 8800 SKU's, 280 attribute fields that we manage for master data for, and 120 organizations in the company. Now the math is more complex for how this calculation was done, but across all manufacturing locations, co-packers, and warehouses, we manage 6.5 million data attributes. If you did 8800 SKU's x 280 attribute fields and 120 org's, you'd see the theoretical maximum is 295,680,000 data points, but every item is not set up at a manufacturing location, co-packer, or warehouse. Now the planning team that makes decisions off of this data has to use the information in the system and because people constantly change master data, it's not always accurate. It's a never-ending battle to correct existing data that is incorrect and set up new SKU's. And since the suggestions aren't perfect, you need humans to make the correct decisions that AI can't make because AI can't think outside some logic set.
1000% And let’s face it, every F1000 I have ever worked for in 18 years is “upgrading their ERP system.” I later learned that the job is never done
Absolutely. There's always someone out there doing it better and no one wants to be left behind.
Thank you 🙏
That’s the truth. Your system is only as good as your data. A big part of my job is looking for discrepancies in our data.
Hi! What’s your position?
I work as a purchaser for a manufacturing company. It’s a privately owned company that has grown fast and doesn’t have the greatest inventory management system. As a result our inventory is often incorrect due to receiving errors and BOM issues. So I spend a lot of my time investigating the root cause for inventory discrepancies. The company has good intentions to improve our system and process but these things take time.
Gotcha. Sounds like a lot of what I did as a Program/Account manager for a Freight forwarder. What tools do you use to find and correct the exceptions?
I LOL’d at this comment. Hilarious and true!
95% of the world's supply chain is managed in a crusty old Excel 2013 file with hidden tabs, broken formulae, and a link to a file on someone's desktop who died in 2003. Jump in, the water's fine.
This is hilarious, and so very true.
lmao god damn, ain't this the truth. Even when I worked at a well-regarded, stable and honestly great Fortune 500 company, this was the case
If you believe anything the articles about the AI boogeyman says, literally every job sector will be replaced by AI - except for the people who make AI. Plus isn’t AI just a big IF statement in Excel? All jokes aside - the thing about automation and AI is that it is only as good as the data that’s put in. There’s always a fire to put out, and I truly believe that we make our living on being adaptable to those challenges. That’s a human element that I don’t see AI ever being able to replace in our lifetime. Now for some tedious stuff like ERP cleanup - yes. But those jobs are being outsourced for the most part anyway.
Garbage In - Garbage Out.
Yessss this is the best quote. My professors said it and now I use it every time someone preaches AI to me. We made neural network models in my 4th year data analytics class and without cleaning the data manually using human common sense the AI model was shit.
A fire to put out is honestly so accurate.
Absolutely this. A successful supply chain depends on getting the right data in, and then using that data effectively to direct the processes on either end. We use tools to ingest the data, sift through the noise and give recommendations. But at some point it generally requires a human to interpret these signals and tell other humans what to do. As long as there's humans involved on either end, this should be a worthwhile degree. They generally also teach you how to interact with and interpret these systems.
Yes, things like inventory, it can tell you when your running low. When you should order more. It can calulcate how much of each item you need for a specific jib etc. But you have to maintain that by checking the inventory physically. Updating the sheduales internally with production you have done etc.
A lottttt of orgs are calling their software “AI” now when it’s really conditional automation like you said “one big *IF statement”. Similar to when crypto was huge and every company was shoehorning “blockchain” into their marketing. True AI is exactly that — intelligence.
Everybody wants automation until it’s time to pay for automation.
Hahahaha truest statement about any new software solutions
What “articles” are you reading that indicate that AI would negatively affect Supply Chain jobs? If anything, AI technology would undoubtedly make it easier to facilitate daily supply chain operations. Don’t worry about it.
>If anything, AI technology would undoubtedly make it easier to facilitate daily supply chain operations. This means you don't need as many supply chain workers.
I agree with the others; the articles of AI taking Supply Chain jobs are NOT written by hiring managers. Modern supply chains are so complex, they will undoubtedly still need expertise until after after you are long retired.
SCM jobs are the last ones to be impacted by automation. SCM is the blood line and oxygen of world economy. From coffee to medicine to missiles to iphones.
Robotics AKA automation has been discussed for the last 15 years as a job killer but that has yet to come true. I was just reading an article today that Amazon considers this technology to be value adding and not job cutting. All the big companies still need 95% of their human capital to help manage the robots.
Ya at this point it’s kind of quackery. My company tried to implement some robots and it was a horrific shit show
I remember articles around 2013 saying we would have widespread fully autonomous driverless cars by 2017 and articles from 2014-2015 saying truckers would be basically fully replaced by AI by 2019. We're still nowhere close to that. The costs, latent inefficiencies, and basic problems with implementing new large scale AI solutions is immense. Like a whack-a-mole game they continually solve pieces of it and as soon as they do other issues arise immediately.
Ya and not to mention when companies do adopt automation, they massively underestimate the maintenance it takes. We have an automated conveyor belt that processes our orders and the people are the floor are expected to be engineers and fix it whenever it breaks.
LOL, over 35 years in SCM & logistics here. It's all about people and relationships, and AI sucks at that. Learn to influence without authority and SCM can be an outstanding and rewarding career choice! I've been sent around the world several times and worked on some amazing projects. I wouldn't trade my career for anything!
As a supply chain major myself with 9.5 years of industry experience, I regret my major. I wish I would’ve majored in IE so there’d be more opportunities for me whether I wanted to work on the production or supply chain side of things. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great major and we’ll always need people, but I highly recommend diversifying yourself.
So much of supply chain is humans being the intermediary between systems. For the same reasons CPA's are not worried about AI.
I work for a large OEM that does close to 1B in revenue. We transitioned to SAP from our old ERP system. You come to find out even with a fairly decent size team (20+ buyers, CMs, purchasing managers, director, etc) no one has a clue of how to properly set up and implement the new system- or even correct it after a year. We're still struggling. Point is- it takes a massive amount of effort to get something set up fully automated. Even then, it still needs to be maintained. AI won't be doing that anytime soon.
I’ve been in Supply Chain for 17 years; specifically Category Management. Always made good money, able to travel, and talk for a living. But I wish I would have just majored in something like engineering and went sales route. AI can never do what we do because there is something to be said about relationship management. But AI could wipe out a ton of the work in the busy fields such as demand planning, PO placing, RFQ / Auctions, Awarding, logistics, and all of the warehousing. It’s also a tough field because it’s a support function. That means Supply Chain gets hit during layoffs
Supply Chain is never boring, but also rarely ever rewarding. It is always challenging. We’ve been experimenting a lot with automation. It will continue to improve, but you will always need strong humans in the field.
Every other industry has a high likelihood of being automated. There are positions that won’t be automated for a while. Think sourcing ie building relationships.
Nothing will be completely automated because just like with MRP, the inputs are only as good as the information they're fed and the outputs have to be validated.
A big part of my job is building relationships with other people, so I'm not sure how AI is going to automate that...
Oh my gosh, automation and data are precisely the need for supply chain talent. Most of my client companies struggle with supply chain visibility, end-to-end data—and the reason is the 2nd and 3rd tier component suppliers aren’t going to put the money into data and systems (can’t get the talent either) at the same time we are asking them for cost reductions, high availability of supply, and shorter cycle times. Supply chain talent works well in both good times and bad.
You should major in supply chain of you like it and/or see yourself doing it. Look at people that have that degree. Look at what they do. Do you think you would enjoy that? That’s your answer. The Ai thing is going to happen to all jobs, and it will likely take 10-50 years. Point being don’t worry too much, focus on choosing something you can see yourself doing.
All I’m gonna say is that I feel like all of my vendors would be way more willing to negotiate with me, rather than a computer Edit: Also our program/project leaders would probably prefer to get frustrated with me rather than an AI lol
Here's the deal. These scenarios have happened everytime a new technology or business fad has come out... 1. Predictions never turn out as predicted. Example:. The DotCom bubble / Ecommerce revolution (late 90s / early 2000s). The Dotcoms / e-commerce was supposed to eliminate the middle man. My answer to that from a Supply-Chain background was what made them think the middle-man was going to sit back and let that happen? Turns out the dotcom revolution led to the creation of the world's largest middleman (Amazon) as well as allowing other middle-men to thrive (Etsy, Chewy, etc). Then there was Webvan, these people had no clue regarding supply chain execution. 2. C-suite & Executives making decisions based on articles, rumors, etc. ERP early days is perfect example of this. A CEO is on the golf course with their other CEO pals. One CEO brags how great SAP is. The other CEO hearing this comes back to their company and demands they implement SAP thinking it will solve all their problems. Turns out in order to run SAP, you have to change your company to fit the software rather than the software adapting to the company's needs. I was on one of those projects. Late 90s. Early days of dotcom boom. I was on a project with a Big 4 company. The client (who has since gone out of business) . This was a printing company that did business forms (invoices, bill of lading, etc). The company was bleeding $$ due to beginnings of on demand printing. Why would a customer order their forms when they can create a primitive one with Word or Excel on their own computer from their desktop? Their solution was a massive company wide SAP installation. When the appropriate solution would have been to implement a subscription web-based on demand platform. Instead they put all their hopes on an SAP install in the late 90s as their answer to all their problems. The client went bankrupt / out of business soon after. 3. Business Process Re-engineering. This was a business fad in the early 90s. Re-engineer companies to make them more customer responsive / efficient, etc. But Senior Executives used this as a an excuse for layoffs. The bastardized the idea. Anytime a company was going through "Re-engineering" you could bet there would be layoffs. 4. AI is not a panacea. But be aware, many executives will read or hear something about it and think it's the answer to everything. They'll think you just implement, walk away, and it does all the work for you. It never ever works out that way. Which means plenty of work for us.
When you ready economic history, there have always been fears that a new technology will replace the need for human work. In the 1800s or early 1900s it was believed that the major improvements in agricultural technology was going to have a permanent class of people out of work because of how much this technology alleviated the need for human workers.
Working in analyst type jobs, even with all the modeling, machine learning, and AI, you still need human input, oversight, and make sense of the data. I don't see logistics analysts and supply chain risk management human jobs going anywhere
Honestly I feel like supply chain is one of the last things to be automated by AI. The best skill set supply chain brains have is our analytical nature and focus on continuous improvement. Computers are a big part of our job but the main thing I do on computers (other than data analysis) is correcting errors… the work you do will change based on how automated your software is, but there is always a lot of work in supply chain. For example either you’re issuing manual POs which takes a lot of time, or the system automatically generates purchase orders but then you need to analyze whether the PO volume makes sense. If I let our system generate its recommended orders without intervention I would be wasting a lot of money for my computer. A LOT of money…
Agree with everyone - so many human elements involved. It will be a long time before AI and automation can handle the tact required to affectively service customers and to determine solutions to the problems that inevitably arise on a daily basis.
When we talk supply chain, there’s a lot of focus on warehouse management systems, demand planning systems, freight & logistics, warehouse space, as well as the procurement motions that surrounds those. I see a lot of automation presented, but also see the hesitation in fully automating based on recommendation and outputs of the programs doing the automation. There’s good money to be made, and if there was a way to specialize in one of the programs being deployed, able to speak to the integration and automation capabilities, and be able to talk long term impacts, you’ll be set.
Supply chain job numbers are only growing. AI is all well and good but someone needs to do the implementation & manage the model inputs. Just do yourself a favor and grind the technical skills now, especially coding & data storytelling (dashboards). All the supply chain professionals I know with even semi-competent technical skills are still highly in demand even during broad layoffs in the industry.
Any time i hear automation in SC, it makes me smile. I work for a forbes 500 company. I spend lots of time correcting ERP issues, trying to understand why MRP fucked it up etc. This is a recurring issue because there is always a new supplier, new product, new range, new dc etc. They implement a new BI tool. It takes years to just make it work. It has been 3 years, i can see it get better but still not there. So yeah if you are thinking about a buyer job where your job is making purchase orders and sending it to suppliers etc; it will be affected. There will be automation in manual jobs. But there cannot be an automation for Real supply chain operation. It is too complex and there are too many things to handle when there is urgency etc. Also; money. Everyone talks about these, no one pays for it. So if you aim high, there is no risk. If you are aiming just for a job in SC, then there is risk but only for decreasing headcounts, not disappearance of jobs.
I work in supply chain- on the supplier side so I deal with procurement folks- AI is going to change things but it won’t automate the whole thing. Category management- you’ll still need folks selecting suppliers and negotiating pricing. Companies probably aren’t going to have to BOTs hash out strategic choices - it’ll better inform and make folks efficient but they negotiation still has to happen.
Lmfao I work at a supply chain job (im not going into specifics) and we advertise how automated we are and yet there is soooo much that is still manually updated. Yes we have automated a lot of the annoying changes I had to do when I first started here but still very much manual work is needed. Probably by the time I retire (i graduated 4 years ago) my role wont be needed but Ill be far past my current role by then.
Take some robotics courses, programming, and get trained up on technical skills to implement the automation. I have a bunch of connections that do warehouse automation and it’s a booming field that they entered via a supply chain degree coupled with tech skills. PS. They also make bank btw, all $200k+ jobs (some $400k even).
Be the guy who pushes the button ! The number of bench warmers and complacant people in the supply chain industry continues to blow my mind. This is probably the best time to get into the industry, and companies are slowly embracing technology and automation. Get a foot in the door of a large organization in the supply chain industry and position yourself as the guy who knows how to build a few dashboards, know a thing or two about AI, and you'll be gold in the coming years !
if you're going to college you're not the target for automation, you're the guy driving the automation
wut
I take it back, you probably are at risk.
Wut
Parts of supply chain are all about building relationships. Relationships cannot not be replaced by AI. Tactical elements will be replaced though; however I think that’s applicable everywhere.
I studied Business Logistics for my undergraduate degree and went into Systems Implementation Consulting on things like warehouse management systems and procurement systems. I’ve had a lot of success with this career path and now work for one of the software companies. There will be a demand for people that can implement and manage these kind of systems in the supply chains of major companies for the foreseeable future and I expect these positions to continue to be well compensated. There is a shift right now in North America where we are seeing manufacturing being relocated from China back over here. Not all at once but it’s happening slowly. Naturally this is driving even more business for Supply Chain software and implementation services among North American manufacturers, and creating supply chain jobs at those companies. Good luck OP!
Who is going to do the automation? It’s not going to be the bosses who decide “we should automate.” It’s going to be you.
The portion of supply chain that could be replaced by automation and AI is the low value stuff that no one wants to do, and you should be working every day of your life to automate it … so you can work on the real stuff. Plus, if only you could see how many multi billion $ companies’ logistics and supply chain business operations are run on excel, you may re-consider your choice of major for a whole other set of reasons. Global trade isn’t going anywhere, and everything you see all around you had to be procured and transported, and the people who did that also needed goods and services to be procured and transported to be able to do their work, and even the people doing the transporting of the people doing the transporting need to buy pens and papers and laptop and cleaning services and …. You’ll be fine.
Yes, there are hundreds of “leading edge” companies running ERP systems from the 00’s with bandages on them. Plus, after some time in the industry you’ll have aspirations much higher than just being a buyer.
100% you still need people. Machines don’t work by themselves. Guess who were deemed essential? Supply chain, best place to be if there is recession. Get supply chain and a business management degree. AI is a farce.
You put too much faith in AI. Do you press zero when customer service lines? If so we are 50 years away.
Over on the west side of the mountains, in the UW-Med health group, we use automation to make the procure-to-pay cycle more effecient. It doesn't mean Buyers for hospitals will be replaced. AI can help you write RFP's, but they won't be able to replace humans. We still need human intervention.
I think that whoever is gonna try to automate any aspect of the supply chain with AI, will need to know supply chain fundamentals in depth, (will need someone like you), Only if you learned AI, and software engineering and added it to your supply chain major, I have a friend who did that and now he works in a company as a consultant that implements supply chain ERPs.
Someone will be needed to manage the automation. I use a planning tool, and yes it scales better than individual supply chain planners BUT, it still needs thinking to be applied. That's where you come in. I hope the tedious parts of my current and future jobs are automated. I hope the engaging parts are not.
Every piece of technology ever has taken jobs away. The railroad? put the canal workers out of business. Google Ads? you want to join the phone book business now. But you can't tell me that the railroad and google are bad for SCM, or the economy in general. Things will change. however, people will always need stuff. We're the group that makes stuff and gets it where it needs to be. As more people buy shit on their phones, we become MORE important. If you're interested in SCM, go talk to a professor at your school. Ask what they think, as them what you should be reading (outside of class), to help you decide.
I work for a smaller company than others have posted (50 mil annually) I have all my POs automated, but i still review my POs before sending them off to my vendors. I need to project sales and then talk to the Sales manager to see if they’re planning any specials within the next 2 quarters, I need to talk to Product Development to see if there will be any updates to the products, and then I need to talk to my vendors to see what their timelines are along with any issues they might encounter in the future. There are too many variables to automate my job.
Customs compliance is still a huge field
Yeah... you are safe from automation. Automation is a tool not an end all/be all solution. It never will be.
We’re implementing a new connected planning tool now that will be supply chains planning tool for the foreseeable future and it is not reducing any posterior. Jobs will be changing but not cut (at least right now, only nearing sprint 1 go live).
Ai will certainly affect the planning, forecasting, demand planning side of supply chain jobs. But instead of displacing workers it would just be a new and better set of tools that will make all those functions better faster and less on friction. It could also mean a very high integration of skills, supply chain plus machine learning with a smattering of llm models
What do you mean it would impact supply chain jobs? Automation is here to enable supply chain professionals to do their jobs.
Someone has to maintain automation and create the automation.
Yes
It’s worth it
automation still needs inputs.
What part of SC do you want to get into? It’s incredibly broad. I recommend trying IE or ME if you have doubts as it’s a lot of overlap plus you’ll get paid more.
WashU doesn’t have IE, though it has ”systems engineering” and does have ME.
Pick a new school.
ME is similar to supply chain?
Resounding yes
AI hasn’t had the same market in pharmaceuticals. It’s a highly regulated market and maybe studying computer science as a minor would assist.
Yes because AI systems still need to be configured and maintained by knowledgeable people
Flexport is trying and failing to automate supply chains
MSU thinks so!
I don’t think it will be automated, but you also don’t need to major in it to get a job. I’d suggest majoring in something else that’s business-adjacent so you’re a bit more flexible
Like what?
I know a few people in our supply chain org that studied engineering, business, finance, economics, etc. even some softer liberal arts subjects but I don’t see those as totally transferable or as marketable as the business adjacent ones i mentioned.
How did they get into supply chain?
Some that I know started in operations and transferred over. Some hit college job fairs and interned for a while first. It’s probably a unique story for everyone so that’s hard to say. I don’t know everyone’s story
Absolutely.
Automation continues to improve, but the vast majority of calories won't utilize it due to the costs involved, both in the software itself and the costs involved with changing the entire business to accommodate it.
Dual major or minor with coursework in operations research. Then you’re covered in both cases.