The Importance of Supply Chain Visibility During a Pandemic

COVID-19 has forever changed supply chain management in every industry. From food to pharma, traditional methods for tracking the location of assets and their condition are now obsolete.

In an interview with FoodEngineeringMag.com, Cloudleaf President and CEO Mahesh Veerina was asked about the breakneck pace of supply chain digitization and supply chain solutions that include sensors, a digital visibility platform and cloud access. Veerina shared his point of view about the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic’s drastic impact for those unprepared for a sudden shift in their supply chain logistics.

Interviewer William Labs laid out the groundwork for the interview, saying the problem is, “There are many supply chains with siloed, incompatible data, not to mention supply chain participants still using clipboards and manual data entry. Those that have software systems find their system doesn’t work with others, and these cobbled-together systems are anything but real-time. Hardware support isn’t any more standardized.”

The solution to these problems lies in giving businesses real-time data access to their goods both in the warehouse and in transit. Such visibility allows much higher quality control and faster decision making time.

As Veerina explained to Labs, the Cloudleaf platform makes it possible to collect more kinds of data that allow businesses to combine all their sensor data into one intelligent platform, and is able to integrate with any legacy systems clients are already using. “Data is fed to the cloud and into our platform where client teams remotely track materials and goods. This enables visibility at the product level—the package, pallet or product container going beyond simply tracking the truck or plane or ship that transport your products.”

This isn’t the first time Veerina has championed supply chain visibility during the pandemic. In April, he published “Why supply chains are a critical force in a global pandemic” on pharmamanufacturing.com where he urges manufacturers and supply chain managers to understand the importance of supply chains in combating the global pandemic. “As we’ve seen with COVID-19, the response speed of supply chains is critical in helping slow down and even prevent the total number of casualties in a global health emergency. The sooner solutions can be assembled — whether it is a hospital being built or getting PPE into the hands of medical teams — the sooner people can be treated and the less spread that occurs.”

Supply chain visibility is, in a very real sense, what will help save lives when applied to critical supply chains. Cloudleaf’s Digital Visibility Platform will give your organization the visibility tools it needs to survive these challenging times and other future challenges that are to come. For more about the importance of supply chain visibility during a pandemic, read the complete Food Engineering Mag interview.

Learn more about Cloudleaf’s mission to save lives through complete supply chain visibility.