What almost sounds today like something out of a fairy story, just three years ago the global supply chain was so efficient, the captain of a container ship leaving the Chinese port of Shanghai Ningbo would know close to the minute when the vessel would be unloaded in Long Beach, California.

This was the same for vessels going to other ports in Asia, Europe, the Middle East or for that matter, anywhere on the globe. This reliability was so high, that manufactures no longer had to maintain huge stocks of parts but could rely on ‘just-in-time’ scheduling.

However, first Covid and now the war in Ukraine has shown just how fragile this complex, interconnected supply chain network truly is, with other disruptors on the horizon.

In an article in Wired, Richard Wilding, professor of supply chain strategy at Cranfield University in the UK,  said that managing a supply chain used to involve dealing with 80 percent predictability and 20 percent coping with surprises. Now those figures have reversed.

However, as more and more companies scramble for more data to cope with these disruptions, some analytic businesses have realised that there are huge opportunities to provide this data. For manufacturers, it’s not enough to know where their products are, what is more important is when will they arrive and what possible issues could affect this date.

Everstream Analytics gathers supply chain data by using open source information such as shipping records, news, and social media, and then uses analysts who attempt to predict trouble spots.

Windward uses shipping transmissions, satellite imagery and port data to analyse supply chain problems and risks, while Wiliot makes low-cost radio tags for shipping crates to allow scanners automatically track their location.

According to William Reinsch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, part of the problem is that the supply chain was already being stretched by trade and geopolitical tensions. Reinsch told Wired: “It’s the perfect storm, between Covid, the war, trade turmoil, and the growing antagonism between the US and China on economic issues.”