Inovis White Paper Sample

Now that we know what it is not, let's take a look at how some leading business consultants and researchers define "supply chain visibility." According to AMR Research, it is something that provides "the real-time, micro-level view needed to perform the critical functions of monitoring, notifying, simulating, controlling and measuring." Noha Tohamy of Forrester Research defines it as "a firm's ability to collect and analyze distributed data, generate specific recommendations and match insights to strategy." Tompkins Associates defines it as "built-in messaging and data transport that can allow your partners to know the items you need as soon as you are aware [that you need them]." Kai Trepte, co-founder of supply chain consulting firm John Galt Solutions, says it's about "balancing supply and demand and using the links in the chain to understand how each impacts your entire business."

So we can boil all this down into a pretty basic definition. Inovis defines visibility as something that 1) gives you the kind of information you need — when you need it and in the right context — to make solid business decisions, 2) can drill down into the violation details to determine root cause and 3) provides tools that present that information in such a way so that you not only can make those decisions but also act on them immediately. Visibility really is Actionable Intelligence.

With right-time data appearing on a real-time dashboard, you actually get useful intelligence, culled from moving or "in flight" data, that allows you to act, not simply react. In other words, supply chain visibility allows you to predict events before they occur and, if necessary, make adjustments.