Background
Leonardo da Vinci was once quoted as saying, "Art is difficult to replicate, and unpredictable in its application, other than by Mother Nature". This explains why there are so few Stradivarius violins on the market. Yet today, contemporary art is easy to replicate by using modern duplicating technology. However, in the case of modern manufacturing, "art" has mostly been replaced with statistical measurement and process control. For this reason, supply chain processes require the same kind of structured views to monitor, measure, and analyze activities within the modern supply chain that manufacturing entails to mass produce. Supply chain management (SCM) is the art and science of managing uncertainty. Supply chain visibility (SCV) provides the event level data and information required to make the concept of process control for the supply chain a reality.
Process uncertainty burns brightly in the manufacturing and supply chain flow of the extended enterprise. Demand and supply management, market dynamics, capacity, security, service and support activities, and network management all contribute to the enterprise uncertainty. SCV and supply chain event management (SCEM) are tools and techniques designed to quell uncertainty. SCV is much more than "track and trace"; it is the transparent view of time, place, status, and content that monitors events within supply chain processes. SCV measures the performance of processes and organizations, and notifies interested parties when processes fall out of the acceptable range of performance.
Eliminating the source of uncertainty. Visibility can identify sources of uncertainty and shed light on events in order to identify systemic process problems. For example, it can identify bottlenecks and provide other opportunities for improvement in processes, such as new product introduction (NPI). A Web-native application and platform can provide a single view of individual and aggregated events.
Protecting the supply chain defensively from unanticipated variability. Visibility can help predict the range of variability, as well as reveal when to deploy reserve resources and when to use resource buffers.
Protect actively by making supply chain processes more flexible. When changing conditions are visible, they can be identified, and users can respond immediately. For example, resources can be reallocated and transported across a network as conditions warrant.
Traditional ERP and SCM systems such as supply chain planning, order management, and logistics management provide static and fixed views, because the systems themselves are rigid. However, emerging interdependent supply networks (ISN) use collaborative planning and forecasting, distributed order management, and collaborative transportation planning to extend visibility beyond the edge of the enterprise. They are also mobile and can exploit new technologies like global positioning systems (GPS), active radio frequency identification (RFID), information exchanges, and satellite communications. As a result, global visibility is now reality, thanks to these and other technological advances.
Although many independent SCEM vendors have disappeared, supply chain offerings still include visibility software licensed technology, as well as visibility services. Visibility deployment providers include