Tag Archives: Supply Chain Control Tower

TransVoyant Awarded Patent for Innovative Approach to Real-Time Big Data Collection and Predictive Analytics

TransVoyant today announced that the USPTO has awarded it a patent entitled Computer-Implemented Systems And Methods Of Analyzing Spatial, Temporal And Contextual Elements Of Data For Predictive Decision-Making (U.S. Patent No. 9,424,521). The essence of the patent covers TransVoyant’s analytical exploitation of global real-time big data collected via sensors, radar, smartphones, satellites, video cameras and the myriad devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). The patent has far reaching implications for cloud computing and data analytics in general, and particularly around the ability to understand what is happening now, and to use machine learning algorithms to predict what will happen in the future – where, when and why.

“At TransVoyant, we deliver transformational insights that help companies to achieve competitive advantage and government agencies to save lives, in ways no one else has thought of,” said Dennis Groseclose, TransVoyant CEO and patent co-inventor. “The IoT and predictive analytics space is evolving at a breakneck pace, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of it. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface.”

TransVoyant employs data collection and predictive analytics capabilities detailed in the patent to solve very complex challenges related to U.S. national security. The nature of these challenges typically involves finding a needle in a haystack (a national security threat) that surfaces quickly and requires immediate attention. This entails collecting massive amounts of live big data around the world each day and analyzing it quickly to detect risks that are unfolding in real-time. It also involves applying sophisticated machine learning algorithms to predict events that will happen in the future.

This use case has applications well beyond national security. Given the dynamic nature of today’s global economy, and the need for companies to understand consumer behavior, track shipments in real-time, and to predict and avoid supply chain disruptions, TransVoyant applies these patented technologies to the business world.

At the heart of TransVoyant’s packaged solutions is its Continuous Decision Intelligence™ (CDI™) platform. CDI includes TransVoyant’s massive repository of real-time big data as well as the proprietary machine learning algorithms that it applies to these data streams to produce live and predictive insights. TransVoyant’s most recent patent is directed to the data collection and analytics processing performed in CDI.

In July of 2016, TransVoyant released a supply chain-focused solution called Precise Predictive Logistics™ (P2L™). This solution offers companies a graphical control tower view of their live goods in motion as well as predictive insights that help them to foresee and avoid supply chain disruptions. The P2L solution sits on top of TransVoyant’s CDI foundational platform. TransVoyant plans to announce future industry-focused solutions sitting atop CDI soon.

About TransVoyant Inc.

TransVoyant is at the forefront of the predictive analytics space. From sensors, satellites, radar, video cameras, smartphones and other devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT), we collect over one trillion events each day, giving us one of the largest repositories of real-time big data in the world. Our proprietary machine learning algorithms analyze these massive big data streams in real-time to produce live and predictive insights that help companies to achieve competitive advantage and government agencies to save lives. For more information, visit http://www.transvoyant.com.TransVoyant today announced that the USPTO has awarded it a patent entitled Computer-Implemented Systems And Methods Of Analyzing Spatial, Temporal And Contextual Elements Of Data For Predictive Decision-Making (U.S. Patent No. 9,424,521). The essence of the patent covers TransVoyant’s analytical exploitation of global real-time big data collected via sensors, radar, smartphones, satellites, video cameras and the myriad devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). The patent has far reaching implications for cloud computing and data analytics in general, and particularly around the ability to understand what is happening now, and to use machine learning algorithms to predict what will happen in the future – where, when and why.

“At TransVoyant, we deliver transformational insights that help companies to achieve competitive advantage and government agencies to save lives, in ways no one else has thought of,” said Dennis Groseclose, TransVoyant CEO and patent co-inventor. “The IoT and predictive analytics space is evolving at a breakneck pace, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of it. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface.”

TransVoyant employs data collection and predictive analytics capabilities detailed in the patent to solve very complex challenges related to U.S. national security. The nature of these challenges typically involves finding a needle in a haystack (a national security threat) that surfaces quickly and requires immediate attention. This entails collecting massive amounts of live big data around the world each day and analyzing it quickly to detect risks that are unfolding in real-time. It also involves applying sophisticated machine learning algorithms to predict events that will happen in the future.

This use case has applications well beyond national security. Given the dynamic nature of today’s global economy, and the need for companies to understand consumer behavior, track shipments in real-time, and to predict and avoid supply chain disruptions, TransVoyant applies these patented technologies to the business world.
At the heart of TransVoyant’s packaged solutions is its Continuous Decision Intelligence™ (CDI™) platform. CDI includes TransVoyant’s massive repository of real-time big data as well as the proprietary machine learning algorithms that it applies to these data streams to produce live and predictive insights. TransVoyant’s most recent patent is directed to the data collection and analytics processing performed in CDI.

In July of 2016, TransVoyant released a supply chain-focused solution called Precise Predictive Logistics™ (P2L™). This solution offers companies a graphical control tower view of their live goods in motion as well as predictive insights that help them to foresee and avoid supply chain disruptions. The P2L solution sits on top of TransVoyant’s CDI foundational platform. TransVoyant plans to announce future industry-focused solutions sitting atop CDI soon.

About TransVoyant Inc.

TransVoyant is at the forefront of the predictive analytics space. From sensors, satellites, radar, video cameras, smartphones and other devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT), we collect over one trillion events each day, giving us one of the largest repositories of real-time big data in the world. Our proprietary machine learning algorithms analyze these massive big data streams in real-time to produce live and predictive insights that help companies to achieve competitive advantage and government agencies to save lives. For more information, visit http://www.transvoyant.com.

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Dyson Is Building A Supply Chain Control Tower

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Dyson is the company, located in the UK, that creates those revolutionary products: fans, vacuum cleaners and other consumer things. Owner James Dyson is both an inventor and a sharp businessman.

They are building a Supply Chain Control Tower in order to give his company a competitive advantage. The company is trying to engineer a supply chain based on “build-to-order, rather than build-to-forecast” as a way of reducing its store keeping units (SKUs).

Working with them are their lead logistics provider, Flextronics; and supply chain software supplier Elementum.

Dyson chief operating officer Jim Rowan explained the system: “We know that the supply chain can drive financial performance and the bottom line. But if we can harness the complexity in the supply chain and turn it into an advantage, then we can use it to improve the top line as well,” he said.

The system comes as a cloud-based mobile app with three constituent parts: Transport, which manages freight routes and tracks shipments as they move across the world; Exposure, which allows shippers to highlight specific risk hotspots in the supply chain and monitors their situations; and Perspective, which monitors the “health” of a supply chain, defined by individual shippers’ KPIs.

While he extolled the ambition of a mobile application that allowed his supply chain team to work remotely, Mr Rowan said the physical location of staff also continued to matter.

We are building a control tower at Dyson which will show all the parts in our supply chain,” he said. “It will have 16 screens constantly monitoring transport routes, risks points and the quality of products – it will be a physical control tower.

If you have six people looking at these screens, providing constant analysis, then magical things start happening in terms of developing really creative solutions,” he said.

The control tower is due to be operational in July.

Dyson’s annual supply chain involves managing two billion parts from 300 suppliers, which are delivered to four factories that produce eight million appliances.

Not the most complicated supply chain in the world, but with  two billion parts a year, it is complicated,” Mr Rowan added.

SUPPLY CHAIN CONTROL TOWERS GO BIG TIME

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When we got into SCM Control Towers, there were not too many others (you know, the “experts” who appear in your mailbox every day and draw crowds at those big conferences) who were writing about them or building them.

BUT WE TALKED A LOT ABOUT THEM AHEAD OF EVERYBODY ELSE

Now the “big guys” are finally getting into it.

So let’s recreate what we have published and give you some great material.

12 February, 2013

A new term is appearing in the supply chain arena: “Supply Chain Control Tower”. Just as an airport control tower coordinates airplanes landing and taking off, a Supply Chain Control Tower coordinates inbound and outbound distribution flows. Sure sounds more professional than a “dashboard”.
It is all about “knowledge”. Air controllers get information on weather, speed, direction, and altitude of aircraft and use that knowledge to keep their air space safe. Companies must know what is happening with their supply chains so they can prevent disasters too. They need to be able to do “what-if” analysis and work their way around events that will cause disruption and risks to the supply chain

10 May, 2013

Who Sits Where In The SCM Tower

The Global Supply Chain Forum has identified eight key processes that make up the core of supply chain management: (1) Customer Relationship Management (provides the structure for how the relationship with the customer is developed and maintained); (2) Customer Service Management (the company’s face to the customer); (3) Demand Management (coordinates all acts of the business that place demand on manufacturing capacity): (4) Order Fulfillment (integration of the firm’s manufacturing, logistics and marketing silos); (5) Manufacturing Flow Management; (6) Procurement (supplier relationship management); (7) Product Development and Commercialization (integrating customers and suppliers into the product development process in order to reduce time to market; (8) Returns.

In my first take at staffing the SCM Control Tower, I have Logistics, CRM, Demand Planning, Procurement and EDI/Electronic Commerce. I’m not far off the mark. I am covering all the “processes” that the Forum covers. In the Forum’s approach, everybody still reports organizationally in their own “silo” and proper operation of the SCM Control Tower depends on collaboration among the silos

21 June, 2013

SCM Control Tower Team Troubles

You are in the process of staffing your SCM Control Tower. This group will be drawn from different areas of your company (different “silos”) and different skill sets (for example, a “hazmat” expert). Is your SCM Control Tower going to be a team building melting pot or a boiling cauldron of dis-function. You could draw the brightest and most hard working employees in and outside of your company; but if they don’t get along, it could wreck your business.

 

19 August 2013

SCM Control Tower Functions

Our Supply ChainControl Tower is up and running. Yes, the idea makes a lot of sense, but what are the benefits? How do we make full use of our resources? What else do we need to add to it?


If you take a look at an airport control tower, it usually is a boring place. Yes, they work around the clock but all you see is a super smooth operation. Operators viewing screens and talking calmly into headsets. When it is not “boring”, they usually throw visitors out. Our goal with our SCM Control Tower is to make it a “boring” place.

Airport towers handle incidents on the ground like failed landing gear. They handle incidents in the air like a “near miss”. They even reach out to other airports: anybody ever sat in an airport waiting for your destination airport to plow its snow, or whatever?

So all the time our SCM “tower operators” are monitoring for aberrations: in-house; with the suppliers and service providers; and the external World. They are looking for anything that has, will or might interrupt the supply chain. When ever, let’s call it an “incident”, is detected, the tower operator first determines if it has already occurred.

05 September 2013

Transportation Control Towers

We have been talking a lot about Supply Chain Management Control Towers. Yes, transportation (usually under logistics) is included in the control tower. In many companies, transportation is outsourced to a 3PL, 4PL or 5PL provider. This provider is an expert at hooking your company up to any required transportation resources. Your provider already has some excellent tools available. A popular concept since the 1990’s has been the “Load Control Center” (LCC). We are looking at outsourcing, but yes, excellent software is available if you do it yourself.
Transportation has always been an opportunity to centralize and get some benefits. 3M started the concept of Load Control Centers(LCC) and lots of others followed suit. The LCC is simply centralization of transportation planning and execution. Benefits include:

  • better pricing from centralized transportation sourcing

  • development of standardized operating procedures

  • fewer planners than in several separate operations

  • ability to combine more shipments and loads because of greater visibility

  • electronic integration with carriers

 

4 November 2013

SCM Control Towers and BIG DATA

Control towers are used in many industries for different purposes: airports and railroads use them for traffic control; power plants have control rooms to monitor operations and third party logistics providers use them to track transportation activities. These are places where operations run well. Why not a “SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT CONTROL TOWER” to monitor and assure supply?

The SCM Control Tower is all about having visibility throughout the supply chain. But if there is total visibility and no ability to make decisions, then it is not a control tower. To be a decision maker, you will need to run “what if” scenarios: forecast and recalculate the entire inventory if “your ship doesn’t come in” (something that literally could happen). To be able to calculate effects of events, it will require a LOT of data. Hence, we need to introduce BIG DATA to our Control Tower.

HEY, I have a GREAT IDEA. If you have more stories or things to add, Send us your story (on the contact form) and WE WILL PUBLISH IT

Supply Chain On Demand

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Most Supply Chain Management executives are concerned with the risks from extended supply chains, but only a few have real end-to-end visibility into their supply chains. For those without this full visibility, outsourcing and globalization have put a “lot of rocks on their wagon.” They see increased demand/supply variability and increased lead times. They don’t see problems until it is too late and then, they are slow to react. We need to aim for a demand driven Supply Chain Management solution in the Cloud. For discussion purposes, let’s call it “SCM NET WORKS” Let’s start with a real time network. Where ever it is and whoever runs it, the aim is to get as many links in the supply chain on it as possible. It must be a multi-party network that uses the latest technology (Cloud, mobile apps, Big Data, etc). It is like a social network. It is a many-to-many network. It is bigger than a bread basket and it is faster than lightning. It will result in a real time decision-making supply chain operation that allows an unlimited number of trading partners to plan, execute, synchronize and optimize in real time all of the business processes and events that are going on in numerous extended supply chains. It includes everything from raw materials right up to the consumer.

Read more about Supply Chain on Demand

Alternative to SCM Control Towers

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Is a Supply Chain Management Control Tower the only way to go? What issues are not yet solved with our current thoughts on SCM Control Towers? Are we looking at some type of a “Commercial Network” instead; or are looking at “SCM Control Tower 2?” In any event, there is a requirement for further automation of the process.
What are some of the drawbacks with our current implementation strategy?

  1. The “network” that is required for visibility sometimes requires lower-tier suppliers, public warehouses, wholesalers, etc. to “log in” to several different networks (one for each “important” SCM Control Tower they deal with. We need a simple, reusable network approach to bring everyone into the tower. The solution lies in B2B Networks (VAN2). Extremely time critical communications could be accomplished by “texting” selected members of the Control Tower community, then following up with an EDI message.
  2. Is there too much dependence on humans making decisions? Cannot some of the decisions being made be better automated? Can’t we use “decision support” technology to build automated responses at the back end of system?

Read more: http://www.ec-bp.com/index.php/advisors/ec-bps-bloggers/10393-alternative-to-scm-control-tower#ixzz2uKNv6Rkg

 

Supply Chain Intelligence: Using Your Visibility

ImageImageWe know that supply chain visibility is a requirement for any company competing in today’s global marketplace. You must be able to see something if you want to manage it. It is the key to Supply Chain Management. We have talked about the Supply Chain Control Tower and who sits in the tower, now we are going to talk about what should be going on in the Supply Chain Control Tower and what it can do for you.

Good Supply Chain Management procedures lower inventory and costs. So why do a lot of companies have trouble putting it all together? Everyone already has electronic identification/bar coding on just about everything. Lower-tier suppliers are very cooperative sharing their data. No, it’s not a report you want to see. That is something in a rear-view mirror. Instead you want to see a real time micro view of where everybody and everything is at. Basically, it is an exception report: things that aren’t right.