Supply-chain visibility stalls

Computerworld - While three out of four companies want to achieve Web-based, real-time data visibility through their supply chains, 85% are concerned about their ability to implement it, according to a soon-to-be-published survey.
Among the barriers are trust issues, the complexity of existing procurement processes and the lack of scalable technology to handle the huge volumes of data involved, said Jim Kilpatrick, a partner at New York-based Deloitte Consulting, which conducted the survey of 400 companies, each with at least $1 billion in annual sales.
The reality is far from the vendor hype. "No one is there," said Karen Peterson, an analyst at Gartner Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn. Some high-tech companies, such as Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Computer Corp. and San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc., are probably the furthest along the path to implementation, she said.
Nonetheless, in recent weeks, executives from non-high-tech companies, including Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., Kmart Corp. and Caterpillar Inc., have touted their companies' plans to pursue collaborative supply-chain strategies that connect sales data to design, marketing and manufacturing systems, and from there to suppliers and even customers.
There are various benefits. For instance, Toyota believes visibility will increase the speed and flexibility of the inventory channels between the company and its dealers and suppliers.
Another company in the fray is Procter & Gamble Co., the Cincinnati-based maker of household and health products.
"To realize the vision of a fully integrated and efficient supply chain, we need to have data visibility across all of the supply-chain partners," said Steve David, P&G's CIO. "So when a consumer buys a roll of paper towels, the forest products company knows immediately they need to cut another tree to send to the pulp maker who supplies Procter & Gamble so that we can make another roll of towels to send to the retailer."
But this is easier said than done, as the Deloitte survey confirms. Slated for release in the next couple of months, the survey shows that 80% of the respondents said they feel that it's very important or critical to build strong relationships - including end-to-end data visibility - with customers across the extended supply chain; 75% said they feel that way about suppliers. Nearly all of the respondents said they had misgivings about executing on this type of program.
The biggest bottleneck to enabling visibility is that "there are no common data standards or systems across the supply chain," said David. "We need more standards so global retailers can deal with us more efficiently. The visibility is