The pandemic has caused a significant shift in all our lives. We can’t move around, hang out time with people, arrange parties, or get together like before. Most of our time is now spent at home. Many, if not all, of us, having to face small to significant changes in our workplaces and working arrangements.
Some lost jobs, while many others had their hours significantly cut . While we have been waiting for almost a year for everything to get back to normal still, it hasn’t. Meanwhile, the people who lost jobs had to look elsewhere to earn a living. Surprisingly, supply chain and logistics have been among the top new employers.
Even when the economy faces a downturn, the essential processes go on, and that includes logistics. Retail has to operate, even when the challenge of a global pandemic his. During this pandemic, people’s spending habits has surprisingly increased. With retail giants like Walmart, Tesco struggling to meet demands. These large companies are now hiring new workers, set up new warehouses, and expand their fleet of delivery trucks.
However, the pandemic blessed the e-commerce industry the most. Amazon has added 175,000 new jobs and had them all filled by March alone. Walmart and Amazon have grown $116 billion richer than they were before the pandemic. A stunning 56% in growth!
Due to such shifts, even airplane pilots took on the job of truck drivers. However, due to many restrictions, the supply chain process is not as efficient as before. It is high time companies integrate automated technologies in order to ensure demands can be met moving forward.
Technologies To Help Logistics Workers
Warehouse Management Software (WMS)
Warehouse management software has become a norm among all small to large warehouses. It is easy to get lost in large warehouses and take considerable time to find the right products, count inventories, or add up costs. WMS makes it easy and possible to manage such stock.
It allows for tracking inventories, finding out the best way to store and use spaces, integrate the info within other software, manage documents, and then use the data to further analyse the performance.
Trucking Software
You might know trucks are used for delivery and are often owned and operated as a fleet. For owners or even the retail contractors, it gets hard to maintain these trucks, especially long-haul. Often, they need to pass on new instructions to drivers. That’s where trucking software comes in.
This type of software helps manage routes and stock, creates fuel and mileage reports and assists with fuel tax management, tax documents, permits and licenses, and allow retailers to directly contact each driver with specific stocks.
Task Management Software
Yes, many of us use Trello and other task management software to stream tasks and keep everyone in the loop. Similarly, handling logistics and workers, allocating tasks, and tracking them separately might not be efficient. Thankfully, such software allows a supervisor to create, assign tasks, monitor progress, change their commanding officer or department, and even generate insights on their workload.
Conclusion
One might think that software might cut jobs or be a hindrance in creating new ones. However, during this pandemic that is not the case; software actually helps workers to perform better, communicate effectively, and in the end, make the whole supply chain efficient. Efficiency means instead of being stuck, they get new opportunities to focus on.
Author:
I’m Jaylin: guest post service planner of Leelija and full time blogger. Favourite things include my camera, traveling, caring my fitness, food and my fashion. Email id: editor@leelija.com