Identify and Eliminate In-Transit Damages with End-to-End Supply Chain Visibility

One of the most common challenges faced by high-value manufacturers is the identification and elimination of in-transit product damage. From automotive companies to electronics manufacturers, supply chain managers often struggle to understand what happens to their shipments between departure and arrival, and why product sometimes shows up damaged. Managers are tasked with reducing product damage, but without real-time awareness into why and how the damage is occurring, as soon as it occurs, decreasing damage rates can be next to impossible.

Limited Awareness

In the past, manufacturers have had limited options when it came to gaining awareness into their supply chains. Companies would often just rely on their carriers to report any damage en route. This led not only to incomplete awareness of damages, but also to an inability to act until after the fact. After all, even if a carrier reports that a package has been dropped or jostled, the manufacturer usually doesn’t find out about the issue until after delivery, and even then they often have no way of knowing how serious the damage is, and when or where it occurred.

Immediate Insight

With real-time visibility into their supply chains, manufacturers can get immediate notifications not just that a shipment may have been damaged, but also exactly what shock, vibration, or orientation level the product has experienced. With that information, the supply chain manager can preemptively reroute a replacement shipment or prepare the appropriate testing equipment and personnel upon arrival to determine the extent of the damage right away.

Data-Driven Optimization

In addition, precise knowledge about the time and place in which damages are occurring helps managers optimize their supply chains and eliminate recurring problems for future shipments. For example, insight into the location of frequent high shock events can enable managers to change the route of future shipments to avoid the problem location, or contact a carrier with detailed information that can help them reduce damage rates.

Ultimately, the goal of reducing in-transit damage to products is nothing new. But new tools and technologies are enabling supply chain managers to identify the root cause of these damages with greater precision than has ever been possible before, which in turn enables new levels of optimization and damage reduction across the supply chain.

For more information about how end-to-end visibility is helping manufacturers identify and eliminate in-transit product damage, check out the recent white paper from Tive, Beyond Visibility: How to Build a Supply Chain That Thinks.