Venture capital investors have lately taken a keen interest in the logistics, supply chain management and shipping market, which measures in the trillions of dollars globally and in the hundreds of billions of dollars in the US alone.
Based on data from 502 deals struck with US-based companies in the supply chain management, shipping and logistics industries, it’s easy to see that investor interest has been piqued by this supposedly “boring” space. Over the past several years, there’s been a significant upswing in the amount of capital deployed into upstart logistics, shipping and supply chain management companies… Between the start of 2013 and the end of 2016, the amount of venture capital money invested into these industries essentially tripled, a positive change of 297% in the space of four years.
The scale, scope and depth of data supply chains are generating today is accelerating, providing ample data sets to drive contextual intelligence. The following graphic provides an overview of 52 different sources of big data that are generated in supply chains Plotting the data sources by variety, volume and velocity by the relative level of structured/unstructured data, it’s clear that the majority of supply chain data is generated outside an enterprise. Forward-thinking manufacturers are looking at big data as a catalyst for greater collaboration. Source: Big Data Analytics in Supply Chain Management: Trends and Related Research. Presented at 6th International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain Management, Bali, 2014
At the 2017 MIT Tech Conference, Roboticist Helen Greiner, CTO of CyPhy Works, talked about her vision of an end-to-end automation of the supply chain, making it much more efficient than it is today. Greiner: “Up above the treetops is a highway waiting to be populated.”
CyPhy Works and Pilot Thomas Logistics are working together to bring innovative technology to the oil and gas industry. PTL is adding our persistent aerial solutions to their portfolio of services. We flew above PTL’s Mobile, Alabama facility to show their team what is possible with PARC.
This highlight reel includes targeted zoom to a bridge 3 miles away, standard and IR overviews of a tank farm, and vehicle tracking on both land and water. All this during roughly 25 mph winds; conditions that could down other drones.
PARC’s live feed was seen simultaneously at each company’s headquarters (in Massachusetts and Fort Worth, Texas) through CyPhy’s data platform. The next day a live feed was also streamed to IHS Markit’s CERAWeek – the energy industry’s premier annual conference – as part of CyPhy Work’s Energy Innovation Pioneers presentations.
Source: CB Insights
