Exploring Nanotechnology in the Supply Chain Context

By now, most logistics and supply chain professionals have heard the word “nanotechnology” bandied about in a number of different contexts. The question then arises, how many of us really know what “nanotechnology” means and more importantly what impacts it may ultimately have on our companies and our profession?

As straight forward thinkers, people in supply chain logistics prefer simple, easy to understand answers and at the detail level, nanotechnology is anything but. So let’s cut through all the investment hype and scientific bafflegab to first develop a basic understanding and then review a number of potential impacts the growth and expansion of nanotech may have.

In layman’s terms, nanotechnology is… ” the precision placement, measurement, manipulation and modeling of sub-100 nanometer scale matter. ” In other words nanotech is about building really small things. So just how small are we talking here? Suffice it to say that a human hair is approximately 50,000 nanometers wide, and nano manufacturing is carried out on a scale 500 times smaller than that. Just sit back and think about that basic fact for a minute as we now begin to review the short, medium and long term impacts this emerging technology may generate.

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