Now a quarter of a century is, to many people, a long time. But to some of us it is just a twinkle in the stratosphere of life.

I remember when a sales person showed me the first set up of a fax machine – and this was when the telex machine was in its prime. I must admit I looked at and suggested the business was not ready for it. Oh how I got that wrong.

So when the first of the email programs became available mainly through internal computer networks, I was eager not to be seen a sceptic.

In this day and age we have almost said goodbye to the fax machine and there are new waves of technology released almost daily. In fact it now requires a new department within most companies just to stay in touch with these changes.

And let's face it, such departments cost money and this cuts into profits, as it is not really possible to recoup these costs through a price adjustment to one's goods.

Of course, we are all reminded that this age of technology reduces our operating costs … sorry, show me where?

For sure it makes communication easier, but blimey Charlie, I am at a loss to see how we can reduce our overall operating costs when, every year, we are faced with new firewall needs, expanded servers, upgrades to systems because one doesn't talk to the other anymore, and so on.

But I guess we are stuck with it, and we at the supply chain 'pointy end' apply a value equation to the back end of all this so we can attempt to get back some of that overburden. Oops, sorry, I mean overhead.

At the same time on the other side of the desk we have seen e-commerce supply chains emerge, and be fostered, developed and enhanced by major mining operations around the globe.

The fact of life is these digital systems are here to stay and there is not much sense in fighting them; rather, we need to work with them.

I am told of many happy endings as smaller companies' haven't found their fears of being beaten down on price in these systems have come true.

And yes, the added volume of sales revenue does somewhat offset the lower margin created by the addition of the so-called IT department I referred to above.

However, in this day and age of e-commerce we don't have 'e-sales reps' or 'e-field support personnel'. No, we still have real flesh and blood staff doing those roles, and in past articles I have extolled the virtues of face-to-face contact as an essential part of doing business which customers expect.

So here again I say we need to find an acceptable solution that fits each company's particular set of circumstances.

And I don't mean telling the customer you can offer 'a lower cost of whatever due to your technology whatsit'. No, you need to be smarter. Have a look at how your product can fit with the technology and think hard about how it can be marketed and sold on this premise.

I can't help you in this area but I am certain there are others out there who can. But let's take a few moments to look at how some supply chains have capitalised on using internal IT necessities to enhance their ability to add value for their customers.

Take a piece of mobile equipment or fixed plant, then ask the customer what they would like to get from it. Likely they will answer "more production". So how do we do this?

Make it run for longer between services and manage when it needs to be given a scheduled preventative maintenance shutdown, perhaps?

The next piece of the puzzle is to monitor all of the device's vitals so you know when and how the machine needs help.

Now add a communication device with some ethernet compatible gizmo to all these sensors and broadcast this back to your operation. That's right - to your operation, to your company, to your smart location that has already cost you a fortune because IT said it was needed

Now you have the data right in your hands where you have all the experts to analyse and make recommendations.

So your sales rep takes this to site, does their job of justifying the value chain, satisfies the customer and the next thing you know your field support personnel are on the job with the customer either planning or applying the electronic maintenance, and creating revenue by combining technology with flesh and blood.

Pretty straight-forward, I would have thought.