Manufacturing logistics and procurement – April 2025

29 April 2025

Future supply chain parameters
Gartner has published a report to help chief supply chain officers prioritise the capabilities that will empower the future supply chain. The report outlines four distinct paths to long-term success: Design, Decision, Deferment and Durability, and provides decision criteria to identify the right path for businesses. You can download the report after filling in your details.
The 2025 MHI Annual Industry report published by MHI and Deloitte, provides updates on the innovative technologies that have the most potential to transform supply chains. According to the report, 55% of leaders are increasing their supply chain technology and innovation investments, with 60% saying they are planning to spend over $1 million. You can download the report after filling in your details.

Artificial Intelligence in packaging
A study (4.24 MB) by VDMA shows that GenAI has a significant impact on increasing sales, optimising costs and boosting efficiency in companies. Overall, the targeted implementation of GenAI could increase the industry's operating margin by up to 10.7%, this would correspond to an additional profit of €28 billion for the mechanical and plant engineering sector in Germany.
Companies are investing in AI across supply chains to counter inflation and trade volatility, but a growing execution gap threatens to derail these efforts, according to a report by RELEX. You can download the report after filling in your details.
A report (18.0 MB) by Google DeepMind introduces a new family of AI models purposefully designed for robotics and built upon the foundation of Gemini 2.0. Gemini Robotics is an advanced Vision-Language-Action (VLA) generalist model capable of directly controlling robots.

Food packaging processing
A Korea Food Research Institute study (26.0 MB) entitled ‘A Framework for 3D Plant Simulation of Meal-Kit-Packaging Robot Automation System’, has been published in Applied Sciences. The new 3D simulation model demonstrates the potential of robotic automation in addressing the labour shortage issue as well as improving production efficiency.
Researchers at Cavalry Captain Witold Pilecki State University of Malopolska studied multi-criteria optimisation of the food packaging process. The study highlights the problem of the two-stage procedure for optimising food packaging where the first stage involves selecting the optimal packaging structure and the second stage allows for the optimal selection of parameters of the packaging machine taking into account two criteria: the efficiency of the packaging process and the oxygen content in the packaging. The study (1.12 MB) is published in Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering.
According to Food Processing, food safety is not the only top priority for 2025 among manufacturing professionals. Cost control was neck and neck with it. And optimism, although still the feeling of the majority, is at a four-year low. You can download the report after filling in your details.
 

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