THE TIME IS NOW
It’s 2022, and as a society, we continue to struggle with simultaneous challenges: a global pandemic, political turmoil, climate change — and a supply chain crisis.
Over the past year, I’ve been focused on working to solve the supply chain crisis the US and the entire world is experiencing.
I believe the supply chain is the new frontier in location analytics, a place where many valuable nodes (point solutions) have been created. We need solutions that will enable companies, terminals, shipping, and delivery services to operate efficiently within each node. The challenge is that these nodes do not currently communicate with each other. There is no way of connecting, enriching, and consuming valuable data between each node, deriving valuable insights and data.
With GIS, GeoSpatial data, Location Analytics, Location Intelligence, and other tools, we GeoSpatial scientists can understand patterns, create analytics, and disseminate information uniquely and more effectively than any other professionals on Planet Earth, and it’s time for us to head into overdrive and find some solutions to the many problems the supply chain is facing.
That’s why we’ve formed ESP Logistics Technologies: to tackle global supply chain challenges innovatively, using a variety of integrations. To begin with, ESP has applied location, location analytics, and GeoSpatial Machine learning to the supply chain. By enabling location, IoT, integration, and data enrichment, ESP has started diagnosing challenges and creating valuable information for all nodes of the global supply chain. We use location to create a holistic view of demand, supply, and risk to provide actionable results. With the application of Esri Technologies and our integration platform (GeoQ), ESP is creating a “Glass Pipeline” that standardizes data across the nodes of the supply chain and provides enriched and actionable data to and from each node.
By using location — in other words, enabling location within each of these nodes — ESP can better understand the cause and effect of assets, containers, and warehousing, thus creating and communicating valuable information and insights to each separate node. This enablement provides efficiencies not seen before within the supply chain. Ultimately, it will significantly lessen the stress on the supply chain.
Additionally, using location does not intrude on current workflows. The advantage of GIS and GeoSpatial is the integrate with existing infrastructure — current devices, cameras, node solutions, and systems — and avoid changing or disrupting the current nodes’ workflows.
Finally, the value of GIS and Location Analytics goes beyond mere mapping. I’m not suggesting that mapping isn’t important to the industry, but I am suggesting that a map is a report, and we can now report in varied ways that are far more robust than simply showing dots on a map. THAT’S our value as an industry, and it’s OUR time to bring the application of location intelligence and location analytics to the forefront, take on new challenges, and continue to solve real-world challenges — quite possibly the most significant challenges our generation will ever face!
THE TIME IS NOW for GIS, GeoSpatial, Location Intelligence, and Location Analytics to shine. Let’s make 2022 the year of Location… let’s solve these challenges together as a community and LEAD the world to a more efficient future and a new era where we can live, enjoy, and love!
Brian Smith — bsmith@ESPlogisticstech.com
Chief Revenue Officer — ESP Logistics Technologies
Sr VP Strategy and Innovations — GeoDecisions
