Article: Smartphones

Shippers’ IT, Geoff Whiting (2012) “Mobility march,” American Shipper, Feb. 2012, pp. 30. The article issues that technology has been at the center of changes taking place that affect the supply chain. Those two key factors are Smartphones and Apps that have sparked much of this change. It is important to recognize that the technology has important implications for both business to consumer links and business to business links within supply chains. According to the articles, smartphones are becoming ever more popular. Smartphones are those that use internet to run apps and access advanced email system in nearly all developed markets in the world. Using smartphones in supply chain mobile phones have settled in our lives for good.
As articles said, “For some markets like United States, this was the first time smartphone shipment ever surpassed the 50 percent mark.” It means smartphones are now entering the supply chain work everywhere from the office to the warehouse. Today many employees have more processing power to use mobile technology while it still connected to company systems. Shippers can quickly communicate with logistics service providers about breakdowns, delays problems, changes and even just general status updates all along the supply chain, allowing for faster reactions to situations. It is only a matter of time before they have found their way into supply chain.
Since Apples launched the iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones are almost as commonplace. The technology of the smartphones is similar to that of a computer and tens of thousands of applications have been developed. According to article, Adrian Gonzalez, president of Adelante SCM said, “Shifting to cell technology will greatly help the industry because not only it is cheap, it can reliably and easily send information from familiar and sometimes cheaper devices.” Smartphones are now becoming an extremely useful tool in the supply chain. It is not surprising that carriers built for speed