The Ultimate Guide to Real-Time Visibility in the Supply Chain
Refrigerated transportation is vital for distributing essential medicines. Many of these medications are temperature-sensitive, requiring precise temperature control during transport to preserve their effectiveness and ensure they are safe to administer to patients.
In today's fiercely competitive global marketplace, businesses are faced with increasing pressure to optimize every element of their supply chains. Real-time visibility has emerged as a powerful tool for building resilience and maximizing efficiency.
With real-time visibility, transportation teams gain a continuous, comprehensive view of their shipments' location and status. Accessing this data in real-time is crucial for minimizing losses and mitigating supply chain disruptions.
So, what specific challenges can real-time visibility address? And how can you select the right solution for your business? Here’s what you need to know.
What Is Real-Time Visibility in a Supply Chain?
Real-time visibility empowers you to track the precise location and condition of the shipments in your supply chain at any moment. It has two main components: logistics visibility and real-time product condition.
Logistics Visibility
Logistics visibility entails knowing the precise location and status of your shipments, from departure to arrival and every point in between. This real-time insight empowers supply chain stakeholders to optimize inventory levels, ensure timely stock replenishment, and streamline daily operations for maximum efficiency.
Real-time Product Condition
Real-time product condition monitoring takes supply chain visibility to the next level. By continuously tracking temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors during transit, your team can address deviations before they escalate. This proactive approach helps to safeguard product integrity, minimize rejection rates, and significantly reduce waste.
Challenges in the Supply Chain
Real-time visibility solves several major logistics challenges, including the ability to anticipate disruptions, gather timely supply chain data, and streamline processes.
Inability to Predict Disruptions
According to a 2019 study, a staggering 87% of Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) struggle with predicting and proactively managing disruptions. Real-time visibility changes the game by equipping transportation teams with the data-driven insights they need to identify key disruption indicators before they derail your operations.
Lack of Timely Data
The same 2019 study revealed that only 10% of supply chain data is effectively used, with the vast majority remaining unstructured and untapped. Real-time visibility unlocks this hidden potential by delivering timely, relevant data that's easy to access and understand. The result? Faster, more informed decision-making that strengthens your overall supply chain strategy and enables you to navigate disruptions with confidence.
Labor Shortages
Labor shortages can strain supply chains, making it difficult to maintain efficiency and on-time deliveries. Real-time visibility helps alleviate this pressure by streamlining processes and reducing the workload on existing staff.
Maintaining the Correct Temperature
It’s difficult to maintain optimal temperatures throughout the entire supply chain. With real-time visibility, teams can monitor temperature fluctuations proactively and intervene before issues arise. It is particularly important to monitor temperature in specific industries, such as food and medicine, to ensure consumer safety and the quality of the product.
In the food industry, even slight temperature deviations can compromise freshness and safety. For some foods, like seafood, if temperatures were to go too high, pathogens could develop, leading to an unsafe product for consumption.
Pharmaceutical supply chains demand even stricter temperature adherence. Insulin, for example, must be transported and stored between 2°C to 8°C (36-46°F) to remain viable. Real-time visibility helps ensure the efficacy of vaccines upon delivery as well as their efficient and timely distribution to those in need.
Supply Chain Constraints
Transportation capacities, rising costs, and unexpected delays can wreak havoc on supply chains, leading to inventory shortages and business disruptions. Imagine a fast-food restaurant unable to serve its signature burger due to a late meat delivery – the impact on sales and reputation could be significant. Real-time visibility enables transportation teams to proactively address these challenges, increase on-time arrivals and minimize the impact of delays.
Benefits of Real-Time Visibility
Transportation teams with access to real-time visibility tools are better equipped to respond to supply chain challenges with agility. With constant insight into the state and location of goods, teams have the information they need to:
Be Proactive
Real-time shipment status updates empower transportation teams to take immediate corrective actions, whether it's rerouting a shipment to avoid delays or adjusting inventory levels to meet sudden demand spikes. This proactive approach not only minimizes operational disruptions but also preserves customer satisfaction and maintains a competitive edge in the market.
Collaborate Better
Real-time visibility tracking allows data to flow instantly and seamlessly to all transportation stakeholders. This enables quick collaboration to solve problems and adjust plans. For example, if a shipment is approaching a border crossing, the shipper is immediately aware of potential delays due to customs clearance. This gives everyone time to plan accordingly and avoid surprises.
Optimize the Supply Chain
By providing a clear view of the supply chain, real-time visibility can help businesses make data-driven decisions about inventory levels, transportation routes, and production schedules. Taking these steps reduces transportation costs and protects the overall profitability and resiliency of the supply chain.
Ensure Product Quality
Industries like food and pharmaceuticals rely on real-time visibility monitoring for accurate data on the quality, safety, and efficacy of products. With access to real-time temperature data, for example, companies can ensure their products meet quality standards and safety requirements — and make corrections if temperatures begin trending too high or low.
Choosing the Right Real-Time Visibility Platform
The reliability and usefulness of real-time transportation data is dependent on the platform that delivers it. When selecting a real-time visibility platform, companies should consider its:
Ease of use
The platform should be easy to adopt across the enterprise, ensuring that all stakeholders can effectively access and use it.
Integration capabilities
It should seamlessly integrate with existing systems, streamlining processes and enhancing data quality.
Analytics capabilities
From basic supply chain analytics to predictive analytics, the platform should support continuous improvement efforts.
Automation capabilities
The platform should have the capacity to automate the entire supply chain or cold chain process, simplifying tasks and reducing manual intervention.
Final Thoughts
As supply chains grow longer and more complex, real-time visibility is key to ensuring your transportation team can make data-driven decisions while navigating challenges and disruptions. Relevant and timely information about your shipments is necessary to move with agility and protect profitability in today’s transportation landscape.
With decades of experience, Sensitech can provide end-to-end supply chain visibility tools to optimize your logistics performance. Get in touch to learn more about our technology and how we can help you collect, analyze, and integrate critical shipment data.
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