A Big Data Framework for Decision Making in Supply Chain

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The advent of information and communication technologies (ICT) ushers a cost-effective prospect to take care of large volumes of complex data, commonly known as “big data” in the supply chain operational environment. Big data is being generated today by web applications, social media, intelligent machines, sensors, mobile phones, and other smart handheld devices. Big data is characterized in terms of the velocity, volume, and variety with which it produces along the supply chain. This is due to recent advances in telecommunication networks along with centralized and decentralized data storage systems, which are processed thanks to modern digital computational capabilities. There is a growing interest in the use of this large volume of data and advanced analytics for diverse types of business problems in supply chain management (SCM). Such decision-support software applications employ pure mathematical techniques, artificial intelligence techniques, and sometimes uses both techniques to perform analytical operations that undercover relationships and patterns within supply chain generated big data. This chapter proposes a framework for the utilization of big data in SCM decision making. The framework is based on the SCOR (supply chain operations reference) model, which is endorsed by Supply Chain Council (SCC). The proposed framework is influenced by the enterprise potential of augmented reality and virtual reality in supply chain applications, and it identifies key categories of big data analytics applications for the key businesses of SCOR model. Finally, the chapter highlights research issues to extract insight from big data sources for enterprise decision making.