What it is supply chain visibility?
Supply chain visibility can be defined in various ways. For the food industry, transparency and real-time information is important when it comes to monitoring the condition of products. There may be specific logistics requirements when moving goods from their point of origin to their final location to prevent food from expiring, such as ensuring an uninterrupted cold chain or a guaranteed delivery period.
For the automotive industry, it is advisable to track the movement of manufactured parts and materials as they move from the supplier to the assembly area. Let’s say you have an assembly planned for the next week, but due to unforeseen circumstances at one of your suppliers, their parts are not going to make it on time. Supply chain visibility allows you to mitigate disruptions and improve your overall planning.
It is a challenging, yet crucial task for companies to track their shipments across multiple modes of transport. Any issues that may occur in a supply chain may either increase your costs or lower your income.
… and why is it important?
How to strategically select a solution to achieve end-to-end supply chain visibility
When looking for a supply chain solution, you should strategically select one that is most suitable for your needs and fits your processes. If your shipments require long-term tracking as they take several weeks from sender to recipient, you will want a solution that comes with long autonomy. In addition, shipping globally requires good coverage, so you know exactly where your goods currently are. Thinking about expanding or adding more trackers at some point in time? Check for a solution that does not require setting up a major infrastructure and is easily scalable. Ideally, your solution also comes at low cost. Kizy Tracking can provide all of this.
Uncover your supply chain with active global tracking – Kizy
Businesses that use passive technologies such as RFID and barcodes only get partial information. These systems need reading infrastructure, like a scanner or reader, otherwise there will be no information on the position of shipments. Hence, if something happens in between the reading points, it is highly unlikely to find out the causes.
Because Kizy Trackers use cellular phone networks and WIFI only, they have several advantages: for one, the trackers work anywhere where networks are available, which means 98 % of global coverage, including the inside of buildings and containers. Secondly, they require much less energy than GPS-based solutions because they don’t need to connect to a satellite via antennae. Despite being the size of a credit card, Kizy Trackers work autonomously up to one year, whereas similar-sized GPS trackers would only last a couple of days. Their small design and light weight of 42 g make it even possible to include the trackers in a regular letter and send them worldwide. Kizy is also a lot less expensive than similar GPS devices. Kizy Trackers are between five and ten times cheaper, with regard to the total cost of ownership.