Supply Chain Data Provides Answers to Key Industry Problems; Gary Fleming and Lawrence Mallia Comment

SALINAS, CA - The perishable supply chain is inherently inefficient.

“Most companies that produce or sell perishable products recognize that they are losing up to 45% of their potential profits to waste and inefficiencies, yet despite having multiple platforms to collect data, they don’t know where their bottlenecks are, and what to do about it,” said Gary Fleming, Inteligistics’ CEO, in the recent release. “The data is there, but actionable insights are not. Most companies do not have the resources or the expertise to capture the data, link the data together, and analyze the data.”

Including harvest operations, cooling, transportation, processing, packing, logistics, and distribution, perishable products can be touched by 3-5 companies, and products tracked by 6 or more data platforms. The lack of data transparency and connectivity results in inefficiencies that lead to increased costs, decreased productivity, and increased product waste and foodborne illness. This, in turn, leads to mistrust from consumers and supply chain partners, decreased profits, and uninformed and delayed decision-making.

“When data is collected, shared, and analyzed, especially integrating the disparate and detached data into a single digital data platform with end-to-end visibility with the aid of AI and ML tools that can detect small trends from huge volumes of data, previously undetected problems are discovered and the solutions become obvious,” Fleming continued. “For example, while it is impossible to eliminate all post-harvest food waste, using predictive shelf-life algorithms based on time and temperature monitoring to manage product movement and display has been found to reduce waste by up to 32%, thus leveraging remaining shelf life knowledge to sell more product. Since the costs for that product are already captured as expenses, the added sales revenue is pure profit.”

Traceability Is More Than a Regulatory Requirement

Current and future regulatory requirements - such as the delayed FSMA 204 implementation - require traceability and tracking of raw and processed products. While there is an expense for the required data systems, the greatest potential costs are lost sales and diminished brand reputation from product recalls and consumer illness and death due to outbreaks of food-borne illness.

“Capturing product data at each leg of the supply chain not only provides the required traceability information, but it is also the same data needed to spot bottlenecks and provide operational insights,” said Lawrence Mallia, VP Digital Transformation. “And Inteligistics has the only complete supply chain data management system that is platform agnostic. We can work with data from any platform, including everything from GAC (Grower Accounting Systems), to ERP and WMS systems.”

For more information on Inteligistics, visit https://www.inteligistics.com.