I believe it was Vance Packard, in his seminal book, The Hidden Persuaders that told the story of how Whitman© Chocolates used to spend more on developing and producing the box in which the chocolates were sold then on the chocolates themselves. The packaging was more important then the chocolates to selling the product. Human nature? Perhaps. A sustainable solution? No. Think Lindt ® chocolates. This same myopic approach seems to be driving the discussion about Container security and monitoring solutions. The technology discussion is trumping the business imperative. Truth is, after determining the technologies reliability, flexibility and ease of use, users -- the 3PLs and their clients, the consignees -- don’t care about the engineering or hardware. Think iPod®. The optimal container monitoring solution recognizes: The box (Container) is not important: it’s the goods inside the Container that matters The truck or Vessel that delivers the goods is not important: it’s the goods in the
In a world faced with the prospect of tightening supplies, higher energy costs heightened geopolitical risk, and strained transportation networks, advanced supply chain technologies will become mission-critical for many more companies. The supply chain task is not an enterprise problem; it is an end-to-end network problem involving multiple enterprises. Therefore, the solution does not lie in fixing one link in the chain but in devising a community.