The Business Benefits of Visibility Technologies
Open lines of communication are critical to a well-oiled supply chain. New technologies, such as Electronic Freight Management (EFM), enhance data accuracy and availability, making it easier to maintain that communication, or “visibility.” This article describes these technologies, outlines results from an independent assessment of an EFM test deployment, adds broader industry research results, and reports the impacts on performance and economic metrics.
By Kenneth F. Troup, Diane B. Newton, and Michael Wolfe -- Supply Chain Management Review, 11/1/2009
The notion of “supply chain visibility” has drawn increasing attention from private and public sectors as a lever to improve supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. Yet over the past five years, major supply chain survey organizations, including Aberdeen Group, Capgemini, and Supply Chain Digest, have documented the surprisingly wide extent and persistence of poor supply chain visibility. Their studies also report that poor data quality and poor data sharing delay shipments, disrupt assembly lines, and stress inventories.
The combination of many supply chain players and often-required translations among multiple formats can further impede supply chain visibility. Uneven communications among supply chain partners often degrades data quality—its accuracy, timeliness and completeness. Even one-to-one exchanges fall short on data quality. In a 2008 Supply Chain Digest survey, 28 percent of firms reported that they had poor supply chain visibility and only 22 percent used a visibility tool.
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