“Fool me once…” — it’s a familiar phrase for a reason. In the world of supply chain and logistics, we’ve all been there. A shiny platform promises “real-time visibility,” only to reveal that the data under the hood is delayed, incomplete, or stitched together from third-party sources with more gaps than a broken barcode scanner.
For years I've been espousing that, at its core, visibility is a product of disruption. We don’t need to “see” what’s predictable — it's only when things go off course that visibility is an imperative. I'm not referring to the performance reporting we leverage to identify and fine tune, rather the insights into the unexpected after things go off course. That’s where visibility platforms do their best work: surfacing disruptions, delays, and deviations; providing predicted alternatives before they become problems for your end customers and partners further downstream. But here’s the catch — if the data feeding these platforms is purchased, aggregated, projected, or otherwise pulled from afar, then it’s often too little, too late, and, more often than not, too noisy to trust.
That’s why modern visibility solutions are starting to dig deeper than the dated EDI based control towers of yester-year. They're tapping into the systems that hold operational truth — ERPs, WMSs, TMSs, OMSs, and a host of other acronyms that represent the fragmented landscape of enterprise operations. They're integrating with telematics, GPS tracking, and IoT devices to capture a clearer, more contextual picture of what’s actually happening on the ground.
But even then, how do we trust the data?
How do we reconcile conflicting inputs from siloed systems with different data models, update cadences, and user behaviors? How can we count on our AI engines and models to accurately interpret and predict when the data is not trustworthy and devoid of context?
We believe the answer lies in democratizing technology — not just connecting to systems, but engaging the people who use them every day.
The real power comes when frontline users — the forklift drivers, the dispatchers, the truck drivers and shipping clerks — are brought into shared workflows as they perform the time honored functions of their roles. When the people closest to the work contribute directly to the data being captured, context improves. Accuracy improves. Trust improves.
This isn’t about replacing systems — it’s about unifying them through collaborative workflows that are intuitive and integrated. It’s about surfacing data where it originates and tying it back to the human actions that drive operations forward.
In short, visibility isn’t just a data challenge — it’s a participation challenge. And by bringing the frontline into the fold, we stop being fooled by surface-level dashboards and start building visibility we can believe in.
If your organization is feeling the burn of dated control tower solutions or other "visibility" platforms that leave you guessing and scratching your head, consider a provider like Aquatio Software whose starting point is at the frontline where the actual assets are being handled.