Supply Chain Foundation – Track and Trace Your Product – location | supply chain | tracker
Supply Chain Foundation – Track and Trace Your Product
You can’t fix a problem if you can’t see it, yet many companies are only able to see a tiny fraction of their supply chain, and that means they end up reacting to crises that could have been avoided if they’d only known what was happening. So let’s talk about track and trace technologies and the important role that they can play in providing you with real-time supply chain visibility. To start with, let’s map out a simple supply chain that we use as an example.
Here we have a supply chain with three nodes: a manufacturer, a wholesaler, and a retailer. In between each of those nodes we have logistics providers who move the product on trucks, trains, airplanes, and ships. Retailers do their best to balance supply with demand, but the supply chain can actually be unpredictable. The manufacturer or wholesaler might need to close down because of a severe storm. A third-party logistics provider might go bankrupt or a ship might sink. These things happen, but if you know where your products are in the supply chain, then you can respond quickly so that you minimize the impact on your business and on your customers. Of course, in order to track your products, you need to assign identification numbers to every package. There are three common ways to put identification labels onto a product to make it easy for machines to read the ID number.
The first is to use a barcode. Barcodes are patterns of lines that represent numbers and can be easily read by a computer. The second is to use a quick response code. In addition to storing serial numbers, QR codes can contain data and instructions. For example, a QR code can contain links to a website or an email address. QR codes can be read using common devices like a smartphone or a tablet. The third common approach for labeling products is radio frequency identification or RFID. While barcodes and QR codes can be read using a camera, RFID tags are small, electronic devices that use radio waves to transmit data to nearby readers.
Some RFID tags can also be read by smartphones, but most of them require specialized readers. Barcodes, QR codes, and RFID can all make it easy for anyone in your supply chain to scan your products and update their location. For larger shipments, you can also use GPS transmitters to provide location updates.
The next issue to consider is where you’ll store the data about your products and their location. You might store them in an internal database and grant your suppliers access to update that database. Or you might host your database in the cloud so that your supply chain partners can update it without accessing your internal network. A rapidly emerging trend is to track product movements using a blockchain.
A blockchain is a database that is shared by several different companies to make it easier for all of them to provide updates, even if they don’t work together directly. Having visibility in your supply chain can help you make better decisions about spending money on expedited transportation or safety stock inventory. When there’s a crisis, having visibility allows you to be more agile and lets you focus on critical priorities. As you think about ways to improve your supply chain, consider what it would be worth to know where all of your products are and what condition they’re in.