5 Ways Real-time Visibility Data Sets You Up for Success in 2024

Data-driven, actionable intelligence is the secret to expanding your supply chain business in the new year

The secret to business success is making data-driven decisions. Not going by your gut or following a fad, but looking at what’s really going on and making decisions based on facts. A lot of companies rely on quarterly reports to drive strategy. And for long-term planning, that’s probably the right timescale. Looking at the past three months evens out the spikes and you can see the big picture.

However, there are times when you need real-time data to make business-critical decisions. When you’re trying to optimize your supply chain or reduce losses from theft or damage, you can’t wait three months to see how the data pans out. You need to have a live view into what’s going on so you can protect your business to make it to the next quarter.

It’s easier than ever to get real-time visibility data on your supply chain

Not long ago, getting real-time data, especially in trucking and shipping, was expensive and cumbersome. But now you can use small, inexpensive devices to track everything from a truck to a pallet to a single box and then feed the data to the cloud and your ERP systems instantaneously. When you have real-time data you can:

Re-route shipments around traffic congestion
See when perishable items are moving out of safe tolerances
Track which suppliers are failing their OTIF (On Time and In Full) commitments
Track key KPIs across the organization
Create operational efficiencies to save costs and be more nimble
Expand your business with ISO-compliant data handling

Luna gives your business the hardware and software to not only collect real-time data, but securely send it to the cloud to integrate with your key ERP, EAM, TMS, warehouse, and accounting systems. Now is the perfect time to set yourself up for success in 2024 by tapping into the power of real-time data.

Here are five ways data, and real-time data, will help you succeed next year and beyond.

Real-time monitoring and visibility

When you can see what is going on in real time, you have actionable intelligence to make quick decisions. If a truck has been stuck in traffic too long and a delivery window is closing, you can reroute it to get back on track. If environmental sensors detect that a load is getting too hot, too cold, or experienced a sudden shock or large vibrations, you can ask the driver to check on it.

Real-time tracking lets you know if a truck makes an unexpected stop and the number of pallets or boxes drops (i.e. pilfering). You can use that data to alert authorities, the shipping company, and insurance companies.

Real-time monitoring and tracking gives you granular insights into everything that’s going on so you can react quickly–and correctly–to whatever comes up.

Tracking KPIs–If you don’t track it, you can’t fix it.

Good businesses track KPIs, and KPIs need data. Pulling real-time data into dynamic dashboards gives you insight into how your key metrics are doing right now versus yesterday, last week, last month, last quarter, or last year. Tracking KPIs lets you find issues like suppliers who have higher than average loss rates or poor OTIF numbers.

Watching your KPIs means more than reacting to things going on right now, tracking KPIs gives you insight into what’s holding your business back. You can look at trends and see what processes are working, and which ones aren’t.

Improving operational efficiency

Tracking KPs is one thing, but then you need to take the next step and see how you can improve your business. You need to apply what you see from KPIs to make changes in operational efficiency. It might not seem like real-time data is as important here, but real-time data will let you experiment and evaluate changes as they happen.

You’ll be able to see right away if things are moving in the right direction. At every point in your business, you can see how little changes can make big differences. Real-time sensor data will help you reduce losses in transit from shocks and vibrations. If you can show, conclusively, that packaging or containers, or even the routes traveled lead to more damage, you can make a change. If you can see how long it takes to load and unload trucks, you can see if you need to re-organize a part of your warehouse to remove bottlenecks.

But you can’t make those changes if you don’t have the data to see the issues in the first place.

Be audit ready

Accidents happen: damage, theft, disasters. When your insurance company gets involved with a claim, you’ll be glad to have well-organized data for auditors to review. More and more insurance companies are requiring real-time data from shippers and trucking companies.

If you’re claiming a loss on damaged goods, you can show sensor data from inside a truck with the exact moment a shipment had a hard jolt. Instead of back and forth with shippers or warehouses or drivers you can show when that pallet of produce got too hot and spoiled. You can give insurance companies assurances you’re closely monitoring every part of your shipping and receiving to reduce damage, theft, spoilage, and poor OTIF performance.

Expand your business with ISO-compliant data sets

If you want to play in the big leagues, you need to play by their rules. Large companies demand their suppliers follow ISO standards and practices. Getting ISO certifications can be a long and expensive process. Each part of your supply chain needs to be ISO-compliant to pass muster.

But if you are following ISO 9000/9001 standards for data handling from the outset, that’s one less hurdle to getting certified and landing that big contract. The only way to do that is to make sure the hardware and software you rely on are compliant and compatible with ISO standards. A lot of systems aren’t, so it’s important to do your homework first.

Talk with Luna XIO about real-time data visibility

Luna are leaders in gathering data from BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) sensors that can track everything from location to temperature, vibrations to shocks. Luna uses ISO-compliant sensors, hardware, and software to gather, integrate, and report on your most crucial data–and all in real-time.

Luna’s zero-touch set up lets you deploy sensors and hardware across your organization in a few days and use your existing communications network as the backbone. Employee devices can have Luna mobile apps pushed to them via your MDM and activated without your staff needing to do a thing.

And everything is secure.

Data integrity and reliability are essential to achieving any of the benefits we’ve talked about. Luna encrypts and secures your data in transit and at rest. The Luna solution operates under the zero-trust IT security standard, which means that the barcode scanners and mobile phones in your network only relay encrypted data, not have access to it. This way you can have audit-ready data and reporting as you can be 100% sure your data is secure and cannot be tampered with.

Now is a great time to check out what Luna can do for you. Learn about the easy-to-deploy technologies that can truly revolutionize your business.

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