At this month’s Automechanika show in Birmingham, Steve Rogerson found someone who is really keen to make your supply chains better.

I write a lot about the different technologies that help improve the supply chain, but how do we know if they really work? And how do we know how resilient a supply chain is to external events such as a war or a company going out of business?

After all, you can’t start a war to test it.

UK innovation agency Digital Catapult (www.digicatapult.org.uk) decided to look for a way to quantify this and I was treated to a talk by Annie Iakovaki, Digital Catapult’s head of industrial supply chains, at this month’s Automechanika show in Birmingham, UK. Annie explained what they had done and why it had become so popular.

“Supply chain has always been my passion,” she said.

OK, stop there! Really? I can understand supply chain being your job, but your passion? Oh well, each to their own. Anyway, back to the story.

As this was an automotive show, her talk was understandably focused on the automotive supply chain, which she said faced a number of problems, many of which are common across all supply chains. Risk and resilience were at the top, with the need to secure materials and components and increase localisation. Visibility came next; it is important to know who is in your supply chain and be able to see what is going on. The IoT has had a major role in improving this aspect.

Technology has also been important for matching supply and demand and ensuring parts and components arrive when they are needed. And it has helped in collaborative efforts to share key information securely across the supply chain. Also on her list were legislation for tracking the source of components, and sustainability and net zero requirements.

“What we are trying to do,” said Annie, “is help you manage your supply chain better and identify weaknesses. How do events such as the war in Ukraine affect the supply chain and what happens if someone in your supply chain goes bankrupt? That is why what we are doing is so popular.”

One example of this was work the agency did with the University of Warwick (warwick.ac.uk) to create a digital platform that addresses resiliency in the manufacturing industry. This digital tool helps organisations assess, benchmark and enhance supply chain resilience by providing detailed insights into strengths and weaknesses.

Annie reckons that organisations using this tool can increase their supply chain resilience by 43%; remember that number. It does this by asking a series of questions and suggesting corrective action to resolve any problems and improve resiliency.

Taking this a step further, Digital Catapult collaborated with UK software company Kavida AI (www.kavida.ai) on a tool that automates order management and provides procurement managers with enhanced visibility and risk management capabilities for their supply chains.

“This can handle all the day-to-day interactions,” said Annie. “It uses natural language, so it comes across really personal.”

And here we come to 43% again – this must be Annie’s favourite number – as this is what she estimates is the reduction in staff hours due to the workflow automation this tool provides.

Digital Catapult is also working with Bayes Business School (www.bayes.citystgeorges.ac.uk) in London to estimate how much benefit or value a company can get from digital technologies across the entire supply chain.

“This is a work in progress,” said Annie, saying it proposes a basic relationship between technology and value by expressing technology in dimensions from which they can determine how much each part of the technology contributes to the overall value.

“It gives a score about how resilient your supply chain is,” she said. “It is really difficult to put a score on this but it gives you a way to compare how you are doing with your peers and helps you manage risk across your supply chain.”

As Annie said, this is a work in progress, but if it can provide a way to quantify the effects of technology on supply-chain difficulties, then that has to be a good thing. Maybe that is why you need someone with passion to drive this forward.