THE supply chain industry needs end-to-end visibility to enhance cargo flow and enable shippers to make cost-effective decisions.
Martin You, sales director for the Asia Pacific at E2open, said supply chain visibility — especially in logistics — is crucial. The data gathered can be used to create real-time insights into potential supply chain disruptions and respond accordingly. “Without end-to-end visibility and realistic arrival estimates, shippers are not able to proactively make cost-optimized downstream adjustments,” he said.
He cited some challenges faced in Asian seaports affecting their business reputations. Just as Asia started opening up again, and supply chains began to recover from the damages of Covid-19, fresh disruptions emerged, including the latest lockdowns in China. This has caused chaos at the Port of Shanghai, the world’s biggest and busiest container port, which resulted in an overflow of problems in other major ports around Asia and globally.
“Logjams at ports are causing major delays for goods arriving by sea. Some ships anchor and wait outside congested ports until they ease, while others skip the port completely to ease the load,” he said.
In China, ships backed up and awaiting berth at the Port of Shanghai now tallied 344 at the start of May, a 34-percent increase from April. The lack of visibility on movement and schedules caused confusion. This caused shippers to incur large amounts of money, and longer waiting times for truckers on land. This led to unfilled promises from businesses to consumers.
He said there has not been any improvement in the global chain reaction from ports to consumers since the pandemic began.
In January, a company took an average of 73 days to deliver goods to truck or rail carriers after booking with an ocean carrier and completing the cross-ocean journey, according to E2open’s Ocean Shipping Index. This is 15 days longer than the same quarter last year and an additional five days than the previous quarter.
More specifically, it took 83 days for container transport from Europe to Asia, and 88 days from North America to Asia.
Global Logistics Visibility is an intelligent app that helps shippers identify changing arrival times, providing more time to respond. This app provides real-time location and alerts when timeframes change. By tracking shipments in transit from source to buyer, monitoring milestone events and being alerted to disruptions, and continuously refining the estimated time of arrival, companies can make decisions to optimize outcomes regardless of the level of disruption.
He said businesses should also have deep-dived into their processes and systems to analyze data across the entire supply chain to achieve better visibility and transparency within the system. This will eventually lead to more realistic arrival times and less consumer backlash.
He explained that analytics, data and machine learning should be intertwined and complement each other. The use of big data is a pillar of logistics 4.0. The fusion can enable forecasts to be made about customer needs, preferences and market trends.
“For example, blockchain is increasingly being used for both full visibility and accountability for ethical and sustainable sourcing. Additionally, the use of big data in the industry will reduce the risk of shortages in warehouses through better allocation of resources, while improving overall customer service in the long term,” he said.
“Although disruptions to supply chains are set to continue, negative impacts on organizations can be avoided. Smoother operations, from port to consumer, start with having the right strategies and solutions in place to help predict, prepare and respond to challenges that arise unexpectedly,” he added.
