The Internet of Things: An Emerging Paradigm to Support the Digitalization of Future Supply Chains

The many potential uses and benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT) have spurred great interest from practitioners and researchers to investigate IoT applications in supply chains and logistics systems. IoT-based supply chains are enabled by technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification, Wireless Sensor Networks, Machine-to-Machine systems, and mobile apps. IoT may allow reduced human intervention in decision-making processes through controlling, optimizing, planning, and monitoring of the supply chain virtually. This chapter provides an overview of IoT and investigates IoT applications and challenges in the context of supply chains. Different IoT technologies are being actively trialed in a wide range of supply chain applications including cold chains, perishable products, agriculture and crops, and some manufacturing supply chains. However, the application of IoT technologies in supply chains is challenging. Security and data privacy, standards and naming services, technology adoption, and big data generation are some of the critical issues. We present a framework—the IoT Adopter—for organizations to critically assess IoT adoption and implementation in supply chain applications. The framework identifies four fundamental stages that should be considered in deploying IoT across a supply chain: adoption rate calculation, profitability computation, architecture design, and continuous improvement.