Trouble in Supply Chain Asset Management

July 1, 2003
According to new research by WhereNet, more than 70% of surveyed companies still rely on manual techniques to locate and track physical assets. Moreover,

According to new research by WhereNet, more than 70% of surveyed companies still rely on manual techniques to locate and track physical assets. Moreover, these manual processes are significantly impacting supply chain efficiency and cost.

Every respondent -- 100% -- stated their current asset management data is inaccurate. 100% also reported problems with “latency”: by the time an asset or inventory item is located, scanned, and downloaded into an inventory system, its status has changed. Amongst other findings:

--64% say operations personnel must manually search for inventory or assets at least once at day; 27% report 10+ searches per day

--47% agree that searches can take up to one hour to complete

--33% spend $50,000+ annually in labor alone trying to locate lost assets

According to Michael J. Liard, senior AIDC/RFID analyst for Venture Development Corporation, “These survey results further demonstrate the need for total asset visibility within end-user environments. Enterprises of all sizes are challenged with the ‘black hole’ syndrome… if they had real-time data about the location and status of all their assets, their overall operation would be, by orders of magnitude, much more efficient.”

(excerpted from The Logistics & Supply Chain Forum 2004 monthly eletter. Visit http://www.logisticsforum.com/ .)