ALC Forum: Austroads’ supply chain visibility report launched

Report examines data collected in real-time pilots involving Toll, Arrium OneSteel and Nestle

 

A new report by Austroads highlights the benefits of adoption of visibility technologies helps stakeholders in the supply chain keep track of the freight at all times.

The report, Investigating the potential benefits of enhanced end to end supply chain visibility, was launched at the Australian Logistics Council (ALC) Forum in Melbourne yesterday.

Supply chain visibility technology provider GS1 Australia and ALC have welcomed the report.

The report is based on data collected using GS1 global data standards (GDS) in real-time industry pilots operated by Toll Group, Arrium OneSteel and Nestle.

The results of the pilots suggest that added supply chain visibility can improve interoperability across service providers with a common tracking identifier, and increase productivity and reduce costs in the end-to-end supply chain.

GS1 Australia senior manager – trade, transport & heavy industry Bonnie Ryan says the report concludes an “extensive body of work” conducted by the ALC Supply Chain Standards Working Group and GS1 Australia.

“The aim of the pilots was to continue the investigation of end-to-end supply chain visibility improvements on intermodal transport corridors using the comprehensive GS1 standards toolkit including common Freight Identification and Labelling, Transport Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messaging and EPCIS – the GS1 Event Based Traceability standard for capturing real-time activity along multi-leg and/or multi-carrier transport journeys,” she says.

“Based on the pilot findings using GS1 standards, the economic benefit to the Australian transport and logistics sector could exceed $1 billion.”

GS1 Australia says the research also examined the challenges associated with implementing a common standard across small to medium enterprises that operate different information management systems with varying degrees of complexity with their supply chain partners.

“This study shows that there are strong economic benefits where we can improve supply chain visibility. Industry should now work towards implementing greater supply chain visibility standards to the benefit of consumers,” ALC MD Michael Kilgariff says.

Toll Customised Solutions head of strategy and development Peter Carney says transport chain visibility allows the company to “intervene” in case of unexpected incidents.

OneSteel e-commerce manager David McNeil says the company hopes such standards get wider adoption in the industry.

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