In today’s supply chain, visibility has become a commonly used term that is leveraged differently by industry participants. In many ways, the implementation of visibility strategies mirrors the evolution of supply chain visibility technology.
At first, it was still used to retrospectively add data and context to delays in the network. Much of the visibility solutions were more about proving the reason for delays were outside of the control of specific parties to minimize accessorial and other cost exposures. This is still the case for many.
The more advanced applications for visibility have been used to minimize real-time delays and implement contingency plans to mitigate the impact of delays that are happening during the shipment life cycle. This is still not as widely adopted as it could and should be throughout the industry.
Using visibility in a predictive manner to help avoid bottlenecks and delays is the holy grail. There are several challenges that exist in making this happen for most participants, but here are a few approaches that will help advance these efforts. The migration to API as the standard for integrations will allow users to integrate and share data faster than Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and will be much more accurate than other data gathering technology, such as screen-scraping. API integrations are faster, cheaper and less capital intensive. Shifting to standardized open-APIs is what the industry needs to strive for.
Digital infrastructure has become a key part of the critical infrastructure the federal government wants to invest in, beyond physical infrastructure. A key component of these investments should be anchored in data collection and the creation of “smart supply chains” with computer vision and device sensors to help create more data confidence.
Data standards and security need to convey confidence to the user network. Currently there is a great deal of concern about the accuracy and security of data. Solving these two issues will be paramount in creating trust and more open participation.