Real time Supply Chain Visibility

     Hello everyone, This is Sathya M from Amrita School of Business pursuing my second year MBA in Operations.

In this competitive technology world, data is the power that can dominate any business in any market. It can help the companies in achieving their business strategies and to be ahead of others in their market. 

Supply chain visibility refers to the pote to track the data related to every aspect of the supply chain like raw material to finished goods details, the complete order to delivery details from suppliers till customers, the goods that we hold with us, forecasted demand to actual demand etc. With high real-time visibility, we should be able to identify any problems arising in the supply chain and it will give us the sufficient time to resolve the problem or to make alternative decisions.

The report from Statista shows that nearly 21% supply chain professionals have pointed visibility as one of the biggest challenges while comparing with other factors. Its also pointed out that currently only 6%  of businesses have complete visibility over its supply chain.

            

Industries such as healthcare have regulatory compliances which the companies should follow and they pose major challenges.

Basically supply chain reacts slowly operationally with a change in effect and even a small change can cause a drastic effect. Being able to make decisions real-time will give us control over the operations. Each corner of data can be obtained by the use of IoT into our Supply chain network that gives a lot of added benefits.

The main goals of supply chain visibility are to:

1.            Reduce risks and cost

2.            Identification of the problem

3.            Meeting customer demand as soon as possible

4.            Improve performance