DECEMBER 20238 logisticstechoutlook.comBy Rob Trice, Founding Partner, Better Food VenturesWe may be making progress in achieving a resilient logistics and distribution supply chain in the United States. As evidenced during COVID, it is widely acknowledged that our massive distribution system is far from optimized. A key barrier to achieving supply chain optimization is siloed data that does not interoperate with other data. While there are thousands of incumbent and startup companies participating in the digital movement of goods across different sectors of the economy, most of the supply chain data solutions lack the necessary harmonization and standardization that can inject the kind of resiliency required in a distribution system to meet society's changing wants and needs.In the sector I focus on, food and agriculture, I see firsthand how the lack of interoperable data leads to lost margin, higher costs, and greater food waste. In 2021 my colleagues wrote of these challenges: Megan Shahan wrote an Issue Paper for the Farm Foundation on the need for Data Interoperability in Agriculture and Seana Day and Brita Rosenheim undertook the herculean effort to develop a landscape of Food Supply Chain Tech companies.The good news is that there is now movement starting to address this lack of supply chain data interoperability. In March of 2022 The White House issued a press release to announce the FLOW initiative to improve "Freight Logistics Optimization Works". The Department of Transportation is leading this effort by convening stakeholders and developing proof-of-concepts.Additionally, a complementary undertaking, the SCORe (Supply Chain Resilience & Optimization) Coalition is making good headway in getting participants and working groups established. According to Jeff Weiss, Counsel to SCORe, if all goes as planned, SCORe will have a formal standardization process underway this fall after a Board vote by ASTM International, the nearly 100-year old non-profit organization that has established over 13,000 standards in its lifetime.One promising element of the SCORe Coalition is that it is making a concerted effort to map and collaborate with other efforts (so as not to"reinvent the wheel"). Supply chain data Resiliency-the ability to recover from an unexpected shock-requires visibility, agility, and redundancy. The lack of digital infrastructure and transparency makes our supply chains brittle and unable to adapt when faced with a shockGETTING LOGISTICS & DISTRIBUTION DATA TO FLOW WITH INTEROPERABILITYIN MY OPINION
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