In the mid-20th century, the military started using scientific methods to manage their massive global logistics. Back then, field manuals like FM 38-1, Logistic Supply Management, were vital for providing guidance and definitive glossaries for military logisticians. Nowadays, thanks to computers, both military and commercial logistics organizations manage global supply chains. But in the business world the question is, “where are the common supply chain glossaries and guides?” Could this lack of a shared, definitive supply chain lexicon explain why we struggle with data interoperability, collaboration, and adopting advanced technologies?
In this article, I’ll first provide examples of where this lack of common supply chain glossaries is hobbling organizations both operationally and digitally. These examples include logistics industry challenges such as supply chain visibility, intermodal operations, and data integration initiatives as well as many other types of digitization initiatives. Further, I’ll offer five solutions that can help us refocus our efforts on improving our supply chain business glossaries. Indeed, this is what supply chains need to increase data interoperability, strengthen collaboration, and better leverage new data-centric technologies.
- 1. Examples Illustrating How Ambiguities in Supply Chain Glossaries Hinder Interoperability and Technological Innovation
- 2. Solutions to Refocus on Supply Chain Glossaries to Increase Interoperability
- a. Create a Sense of Urgency to Fix Ambiguous Business Glossaries: They Are Hobbling Both Data Quality and Operational Excellence.
- b. Adopt an Operational Definition Format for Supply Chain Glossaries.
- c. Leverage Knowledge Graph Technology to Provide Definition and Context to Business Glossaries.
- d. Moving Toward a More Encompassing, Shared Business Glossary for Supply Chains.
- e. Identify the Most Appropriate Organizations to Champion a More Collaborative Business Glossary Development Process.
1. Examples Illustrating How Ambiguities in Supply Chain Glossaries Hinder Interoperability and Technological Innovation
Indeed, the absence of robust business glossaries acts as a roadblock to realizing the full potential of supply chain innovations. Without a shared understanding of key terms and processes, organizations struggle to align their strategies, workflows, and systems properly. This ambiguity leads to miscommunication, errors, inefficiencies, and a lack of standardization. As a result, this adversely affects both operations and digital technology initiatives. Indeed, ambiguous business terminology is impeding technological innovation within our supply chains. Below are examples where a lack of operational clarity is hobbling technology adoption.
a. Business Glossaries
Supply chains have many overlapping business glossaries based on ambiguous dictionary definitions. This is especially a problem with cross-border trade with many stakeholders that need absolute clarity when transmitting operational, compliance, and financial information.
b. Supply Chain Visibility.
Too much data with little insights due to lack of business specificity. For instance, is visibility needed to “find stuff”, identify choke points, measure performance, or for future planning?
c. Intermodal Interoperability.
Lack of cooperation and specificity hobbles digital tech adoption. Data interoperability challenges are immense between various stakeholders to include rail, trucking, ocean carriers, and 3rd party service providers.
d. Data Integrations.
Data gets “lost in translation” due to lack of business definition. Difficult to adopt data-intensive technologies such as AI and data analytics.
e. Emerging Information Tech.
Many supply chain tech projects fail due to operational clarity issues. For instance, this includes tech like digital identity, knowledge graphs, digital transformation, data analytics, digital freight bill processing, and Decision Intelligence to name a few.
For more details on these examples, see my article, Revealing Examples Of How Murky Operational Definitions Really Foul Up And Make Feeble Supply Chain Interoperability.
“Clarity precedes success.”
Robin Sharma
2. Solutions to Refocus on Supply Chain Glossaries to Increase Interoperability
To address these operational and technical challenges, supply chain leaders must prioritize defining and agreeing on common lexicons for both their organizations and their systems. This involves collaborating with subject matter experts to develop clear, specific, and actionable definitions for key processes, metrics, and data elements for these supply chain glossaries. Ideally, these operational definitions should be widely accepted, updated regularly, and available to all stakeholders. By increasing operational clarity, organizations can facilitate better collaboration, faster technology adoption, and ultimately, superior supply chain performance. Below I have identified several actions to help move forward with improving the operational clarity of our supply chain glossaries.
a. Create a Sense of Urgency to Fix Ambiguous Business Glossaries: They Are Hobbling Both Data Quality and Operational Excellence.
Without a doubt, there is a direct correlation between ambiguous business glossaries and the deficiencies we have in both data quality and operational excellence within our supply chains. Moreover, I would expect this to worsen in the future as we continue to digitize our supply chains. This will be especially true if we do not address the ambiguity within our business glossaries. Hence, we need business leaders to step forward to prioritize fixing our ambiguous supply chain glossaries. For more on aligning our business glossaries with data quality initiatives to include the use of measurements, see TDAN’s article, Business Glossaries and Metadata: Using the Glossary to Drive Your Quality Strategy.
“Without focusing and getting to clarity you cannot lead. You cannot motivate. You cannot plan. You cannot communicate.”
Bobb Biehl
b. Adopt an Operational Definition Format for Supply Chain Glossaries.
As discussed previously, it is time for business glossaries to be more understandable. Further, dictionary definitions are no longer enough. Namely, business glossary definitions need to include a measure, a metric, to assure a common understanding. Currently, it is commonplace for supply chain organizations and their systems to misunderstand each other due to ambiguous supply chain terminology. For more examples of this lack of operational clarity within the logistics industry, see my article, Supply Chain Business Communications Need Clarity: This Is What is Hobbling New Tech Innovations.
“Quality starts in the boardroom.”
W. Edwards Deming
c. Leverage Knowledge Graph Technology to Provide Definition and Context to Business Glossaries.
In recent years, knowledge graph tech has made great advancements and utility. To detail, this tech helps to clearly define objects and their relationships, placing digital terms into context and conveying meaning. Indeed, this may be just what we need for business glossaries. Specifically, both tech companies and organizations can use knowledge graphs to enable both systems and users direct access to digital knowledge. Further, these knowledge graphs are understandable to both tech and non-tech users as well as executives for knowledge access. For more information, see ontotext’s article, The Value of a Knowledge Graph: Four Business Perspectives. Also, see my article, Knowledge Graph Tech: Enabling A More Discerning Perspective For AI.
d. Moving Toward a More Encompassing, Shared Business Glossary for Supply Chains.
As mentioned earlier, the supply chain industry has countless, overlapping business glossaries. Also, most of these glossaries cover only one part of the supply chain. For instance, there are glossaries focused on U.S. intermodal shipping and there are proprietary glossaries maintained by parcel carriers for their service guides. Indeed, this is just a handful of examples. Overall, these countless, overlapping glossaries create major collaboration challenges.
Hence, it’s in our best interest to aim for a more unified approach to business glossaries instead of our current fragmented method. One possible first step would be a collaborative approach where businesses first agreed on common business metrics. As a result, this would lead to common measures within supply chain glossary definitions. For instance, in this article, Aligning Supply Chain Metrics to Improve Value, from Lora Cecere, she discusses a hierarchy of common supply chain metrics. Indeed, focusing on common supply chain metrics could be a great starting point for collaborating on business glossary definitions. Without a doubt, ambiguous dictionary definitions are no longer enough.
e. Identify the Most Appropriate Organizations to Champion a More Collaborative Business Glossary Development Process.
As discussed previously, organizations that are stakeholders within supply chains need to work toward the development of better business glossaries. However, there also needs to be concrete steps to minimize the overlap of business glossaries across the supply chain. This would be very advantageous especially for logistics and transportation activities that span across many organizations, regulatory environments, and geographic locations.
Organizations that can facilitate better collaboration include Governments, standards development organizations (SDO), trade associations, tech vendors, and other large supply chain stakeholders. Indeed, as a minimum, Governments and other large stakeholders could provide incentives to encourage more collaboration. This will help to quicken the development of a more comprehensive set of business glossaries. For more ideas on how to improve supply chain collaboration and data interoperability, see my article, Securing Data Interoperability In The Supply Chain: Can The Government Make For Better Results?
Conclusion.
So in this article, I provided examples of where the supply chain industry lacks definitive, shared supply business glossaries. Moreover, this lack of business clarity is hobbling organizations both operationally and digitally. Further, I have offered five solutions that would help us refocus our efforts on improving our supply chain glossaries. Indeed, this is what supply chains need to increase data interoperability, strengthen collaboration, and better leverage new data-centric technologies.
Also, for a more detailed discussion on the need for operational definitions within supply chain glossaries, see my article, Poor Operational Definitions Impede Supply Chain Tech Adoption: Now Is the Time For A Big Change.
Need help with an innovative solution to make your supply chain systems work together? I’m Randy McClure, and I’ve spent many years solving data interoperability and visibility problems. As a supply chain tech advisor, I’ve implemented hundreds of successful projects across all transportation modes, working with the data of thousands of shippers, carriers, and 3rd party logistics (3PL) providers. I specialize in proof-of-concept and operational pilot projects for emerging technologies. If you’re ready to modernize your data infrastructure or if you are a solution provider, let’s talk. To reach me, click here to access my contact form or you can find me on LinkedIn.
For more from SC Tech Insights, see the latest articles on Interoperability, Data, and Supply Chains.
Greetings! As a supply chain tech advisor with 30+ years of hands-on experience, I take great pleasure in providing actionable insights and solutions to logistics leaders. My focus is to drive transformation within the logistics industry by leveraging emerging LogTech, applying data-centric solutions, and increasing interoperability within supply chains. I have a wide range of experience to include successfully leading the development of 100s of innovative software solutions across supply chains and delivering business intelligence (BI) solutions to 1,000s of shippers. Click here for more info.