Reports today have cited that 74% of British manufacturers are facing supply chain chaos due to continuous border disruption caused by Brexit. With increasing pressure to resolve difficulties at EU borders, the government needs a solution that can facilitate the country’s recovery from COVID-19, and ensure success in a post-Brexit world.
For any successful supply chain, businesses need full transparency of what is occurring from sourcing, to shipping, to deliver in order to make real-time, accurate decisions. The more quickly you transfer information on where goods are and where they need to be, the more effectively businesses can react. This requires a smart, agile approach to data.
By helping to imbue supply chains with real-time data capabilities, the government can future-proof the UK’s supply chain, avoid-delay-related costs, and ensure a swift return to business as usual.
Tom Fairbairn, Distinguished Engineer at data analytics firm Solace, comments:
“Both Brexit and Covid-19 have demanded more flexible, agile, and faster-reacting supply chains. It no longer suffices to wait overnight to update inventory if every shipment is stuck at Dover, or all your baking flour is in 25Kg sacks and the supermarkets have run out of 1Kg bags.”
“If the ship delivering those desperately wanted toilet rolls is delayed, the resulting empty shipping containers could help move that flour around – but only if you can react the moment you know there’s a delay to the vessel. We’ve seen savings of over €10M a year for an organisation simply by optimising the allocation of 1,500 shipping containers in motion worldwide at any one time.”
“It’s crucial, therefore, that both the government and industry start looking at real-time data capabilities. The best way to achieve this is through implementing an ‘event-driven architecture’, which enables instant centralised updates to every part of the supply chain. This is already present at big tech companies like Amazon, Uber, and Asos – and can be the real differentiator for getting Britain back on its feet.”