Defining visibility
Despite the number of visibility tools available on the market today, “lack of visibility” continues to be a common complaint in the supply chain market. But what exactly is visibility? Are today’s visibility tools missing something?
The term “visibility” has been batted around for well over 20 years and yet we as logisticians still struggle to clearly define it.
However, in defense of logisticians, perhaps the definition has evolved over the years thanks to the complexity of today’s supply chains and the adoption of cloud-based systems, AI, and machine learning.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines visibility as the degree of clearness that makes sense in a general way but is supply chain visibility just a general term? I’m beginning to think so – more like an umbrella in which there are different segments that should be identified and defined.
But I’m not a technology expert. Instead, I’m one that appreciates it and tries to take the view of the shipper when understanding technologies.
So, I went to where the experts hang out, Twitter (😉), and asked, “What's your definition of supply chain visibility? What's missing, if anything, from visibility tools?”
A big thanks to all that shared their thoughts. Please consider following these folks, names and Twitter handles are included. I’ve tried to group the responses into topic buckets.
Keep the conversation going and if I left out your comment, my apologies - Add your thoughts in the comment section at the end of the article.
A good starting point is from Angela Czajkowski (@AngelaCzaj) who noted consistency and JT (@SCM_tweets) who wrote “I don’t have enough fingers to count them off! But I’ll throw out “who are my vendors’ vendors” as an example of something that’s typically intentionally opaque for proprietary reasons, not technical, and can have a big impact on my business.”
Two more from Miles and Stefan that also showed the complexity of defining visibility:
“I think the industry is slowly coming around to figuring out that one software can’t do everything well. Integrations are 🔑 (And no one loves salesforce)” - Miles J. Varghese @M1LESV
“Linking horizontal scm infos across functional siloes and orgas combined with vertical integrations of information on different planning hierarchies is crucial to derive valuable insights and root causes in my opinion😊did not found a software that can handle both” - Stefan_numi @stefan_numi
Twitter Comments
Financial/Sustainability
Not enough discussion around financial visibility so we can see what's driving the supply chain costs. Add to that sustainability visibility. It's not enough to know where stuff is and where it's going. You need to know the business impact of that information. Taylor Wilkerson @THWilkerson
Forecasting
Here’s the thing. Seems to me if you only define it as where things *are* you fall short. Where things will be, when, conditions, etc are critical. And then there is demand … it’s a lot! Paul Page @PaulPage
It’s also understanding your ability to respond. It helps for a supply chain to be able to forecast. It’s more important to understand how the supply chain can respond. Amrou Awaysheh @awaysheh
Accurate forecasting Adrian N White @awhite_adrian
Actionable
I’d add something else: actions. Visibility needs to be actionable for all operational processes within a shipment lifecycle. Ie what do I do when my container is at X. James Coombes @thisjamesc
Visibility as things are happening rather than after the fact, so one can act Vinayak Ramesh @vinayakxr
End-to-End (Sorry, I cringe at using this phrase…)
I differ here. Many talk #supplychain #visibility as to transportation, which is really #TrackaAndTrace. Plus #warehouse. #E2E, esp critical upstream where the supply of supply chains begin, must start with the #PO. Tom Craig @LTDManagement
We oft times miss out the upstream visibility part. A good view into 'Spend Cube' & its components, suppliers, categories sourced, risk arnd sourcing geos (geopolitics etc), commodity price trends that may need forward buying - all roll up to improved upstream SC visibility. Debraj Bhattacharya @DBIIMA
The problem is the conversation around visibility is heavily dominated by inbound… a considerable amount of the cost is in the outbound… Jeff Flowers @LunatekFringe
For me, visibility is seeing what’s happening in your supply chain. It should be linked to planning and execution. While visibility is seeing your supply chain, transparency is sharing that visibility with your customers and suppliers. Daniel Stanton... Mr. Supply Chain @Mr_Supply_Chain
Deep customs insights, landed cost analysis, customs delays, ports, product level analysis Chris rubio @cm_rubio
Transparency
Complete transparency of Available To Promise Date, Landed Cost, and ESG metrics for the entire Procure-To-Pay lifecycle at the piece level. Brian Glick @bglick
It’s not a series of static milestone updates but real-time alerts &adjustment updates. Milestone updates is chips to get in the game. we want to see adjustments. Electronic proofs of delivery, visibility to returns. In future we will see orders in production @reverselogix Hans Hickler @hans_hickler
Visibility solutions are answering the wrong question. It's not "where are my containers/goods?" It should be, "when is my container available for pickup/transfer, who are the responsible parties, and are they doing what I paid them to do?" *Container Lifecycle Mgmt* Michael Rentz @GMichaelRentzJR
Data
Tech like Kinaxis built software around processes e.g. S&OP or around functions like Ariba did for purchasing and fragmented orgas share data reluctantly or data harmonization is too costly, so I would say both ;) I guess recent crises will speed-up investments in visibility Stefan_numi @stefan_numi
Good, clean, accurate data is a fundamental obstacle for supply chain visibility. Has been forever. Also, c/x and u/x of tech is important for customers, employees and others working with these apps/systems. Bad design also hurts visibility. Randy Ryerson @RandyRyerson
Nothing is missing from 'visibility' tools. So many variations of systems out there, all offer po management, landed cost, tracking, KPI's, contract management, etc. The problem is, we are ALL dipping into the same data bucket for the data & the data is unreliable or not there. SusanP @Susan_at_Sea
Continuously working on improving the data quality. Check out @terminal49 Akshay Dodeja @dodeja
Ultimately, I’d say it’s whatever data related to the movement of their shipment that allows the interested party to take actions with confidence. Cy Sack @cy_sack
Pickup and delivery data for ltl terminals can be a black hole. You have to compile your own and terminal ops changes with the wind. Calde my Calde ** @stu4calde
- Cathy
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I wear a number of hats these days. Catch my weekly column on air cargo, freight forwarding, and the express markets, as well as a monthly podcast on Air Cargo World, I’m also helping out the Reverse Logistics Association as a research manager and at JOC I help out as a research analyst and write a weekly LinkedIn article, Freight Forward, summarizing JOC articles and providing an outlook for the week ahead.