Tech and Patenting Run Amok to Potentially Change the Supply Chain Future

By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex

It’s no secret that technology is evolving much more rapidly than we can keep up with and as those evolutions occur, it often changes how accomplish our core goal of supply chain: Move what the customer what in the time frame they want it. So for a nice Friday post at the top of the year, we thought we’d round up a couple of blurbs on technology (basically Amazon’s hopes and dreams) that could impact supply chain.

So Amazon is back in the news. They’re patenting things right and left. While a patent by no means is a guarantee of future tech, it does offer a glimpse of where Amazon is hoping to take its business. Some of these recently won several patents, if made into reality, could significantly shift some of supply chains operations.

The online sales giant has recently patented two more goods delivery systems: an underground network and a drone fulfillment center in the sky. The main idea behind the underground goods delivery system is to avoid congestion on the surface that is normally encountered by today’s delivery systems. However, the logistics behind the idea may prove to make the idea remain just that, an idea. On the other side of the Earth’s crust (seriously, we’re never going to escape Amazon delivery, no matter how high or low we go), a large, blimp-like floating dock that would hover around 45,000 would serve as a fulfillment center for drones. When an order is placed, a drone would take the product from the stocked platform and deliver it within 10 minutes.

In addition to moving delivery to drones, Amazon also appears to be looking into improving vehicular transport and getting on the autonomous vehicle train. They patented a wireless control system to help autonomous vehicles negotiate reversible lane changes. This falls in line with their major dedication to trucking, having purchased a significant number of tractor trailers to keep up with their growing Prime demand, and also with previous patents that show ideas for last-mile drone delivery via drones hitching rides on trucks or buses.

Recently awarded was a patent for the design of the Amazon Treasure Truck, and unlike the other patents, this actually exists in the world already. The Treasure Truck, taglined as an ice cream truck for adults (who said ice cream trucks weren’t for adults anyway? Not me and my Ninja Turtles Bar, that’s for sure), is a delivery vehicle for flash deals. Amazon app users in the area (Seattle for the most part) get alerts, but once they’re gone, they’re gone. There are no public plans to expand the program to other cities, but apparently they’re looking for a program manager to examine and select cities that might support the program.

All of this ideation supports Amazon’s claim that it will create 100,000 full-time, benefited jobs in the US over the next 18 months. But it really just goes to show that even in an up and down economy that the US has faced over the last few years, supply chain has remained and will remain a steady career. After all, people always want their stuff, and it always has to get to them somehow.

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