by Bryan Boatner
VP, Sales & Business Development
Anyline GmbH
The National Cargo Security Council (NCSC) estimates that the global financial impact of cargo loss exceeds $50 billion annually. And although this number is improving over time thanks to organic process improvements, the root of these losses stem from a few major factors.
In this blog, I’m going to highlight the best ways in which your company can identify and systematically resolve any data related process issues to ensure a more efficient supply chain.
Gaining control through your data
In this current time of turbulence, companies around the world are seeing the vital importance of establishing greater transparency throughout their processes. For supply chain professionals, the pressure is on to ensure their deliveries are made completely traceable and trackable. In practice however, many have great difficulties when introducing new digitization tools into their existing platforms or systems.
According to a 2017 global supply chain survey, 62% of companies still only have limited visibility of their supply chain and 15% only have visibility on production. What’s more, only 6% report full visibility, with another 17% saying they have extended supply chain visibility.
This indicates a clear gap, but also an opportunity for those wishing to get ahead, and it something industry insiders know well. In fact, the same survey also found that 57% of companies believe that proactive supply chain management would give them a competitive edge that would enable them to further develop their business.
By introducing smartphone-based scanning for serial numbers on packages and containers, companies can give themselves a jump-start on their digital journey, enabling end-to-end visibility from production through to delivery.
When it comes to the tricky process of integration, working with a partner like Anyline ensures that a platform-agnostic approach is taken from the start, so companies can ‘plug and play’ using their existing platforms and devices, thereby reducing implementation costs.
Ensuring security with offline OCR
For some, replacing tried and tested manual processes with digital alternatives can feel like a ‘deal with the devil’. Greater efficiency can seem to come at the price of creating new opportunities for data to be stolen or hacked by bad actors.
If that’s your concern, I hear you! When it comes to digitizing supply chains, the overuse of online and server-side data collection creates unnecessary risks for data theft or interception. If you’re wondering how prevalent an issue this is, a Symantec security report from last year found that around three-quarters of all hacks were attempted on point-of-access devices such as routers.
Thankfully, the easiest way to prevent such incidents is to remove the problem at its source, and take your data collection offline altogether. That’s why we recommend using on-device processing for such data collection, enabling workforces to scan and record the information they need without any connection at all to the internet. This means your valuable data need never leave your facility and stays securely in your control.
Removing the errors of manual data collection
With each delivery and shipment, identifying data must be accounted for and collected. Since 74% of supply chain companies utilize up to 4 or 5 different transportation methods regularly, passing this information down the line is like a game of ‘telephone’, and it’s no surprise that mistakes are made when relying on data collected manually.
While the sheer volume of data is one thing, the quality and visibility of the actual data characters is another. Manufacturer serial numbers, for example, are often embossed on the parts directly which makes it difficult for the human operator to read in even the best of conditions.
The result is that workforces simply lose time by painstakingly recording huge volumes of data, lose deliveries by recording things incorrectly, or both. Integrating OCR data collection tech into the existing devices will enable your workforces to work faster, smarter and with far greater accuracy.
Simplifying data collection with an all-in-one solution
Given the variety of data collected throughout the supply chain process, a viable and multi-functional solution can be the difference between success and failure. And while many providers will aid in supporting single data capture solutions, an all-in-one solution is key to maximizing efficiencies.
With Innovapptive, supply chain managers can integrate mobile data capture into every step of the process. Thanks to intelligent OCR integration from Anyline, data from documents and serial numbers to shipping containers and license plates can effortlessly be captured and collated together on any mobile device.
About Anyline
Innovapptive partner Anyline makes data capture simple. Founded in Vienna in 2013, Anyline has established itself as one of the market leaders in mobile text recognition. Using the newest and most innovative artificial intelligence approaches, the company enables any mobile device to process written characters in real time, even when offline. It’s not only more accurate than manual data entry, but also works 20 times faster.
Recognizing Anyline’s place at the forefront of innovation in the logistics sector, the company was named a Gartner ‘Cool Vendor’ in supply chain execution in 2018. In particular, Gartner praised Anyline for its proven ability to increase workforce agility, improve data accuracy and quality across the supply chain, and support the digitization of SCE at every stage.
One scan at a time, Anyline is bridging the gap between the analog and digital worlds. To learn more, visit www.anyline.com
