Article By Luke Olsen, Managing Director, Microlise APAC
The blind spot in manufacturing supply chains isn’t what most people think. It’s not a lack of technology. It’s not a lack of data. After more than two decades working across transport and logistics in Australia and New Zealand, that assumption doesn’t hold up.
Most carriers running meaningful fleets in ANZ have telematics installed. Most distribution businesses have some form of scanning or electronic proof of delivery in place. The data exists. The operational layer is there. Australian logistics has invested seriously in technology over the past decade, and the market is more sophisticated than it sometimes gets credit for in global conversations.
The blind spot sits somewhere else entirely. The moment a product leaves the warehouse, the manufacturer at the top of the supply chain largely loses sight of it. Not because the data stops being captured, but because it stops flowing to the people who need it.
The data stops where the accountability starts
A consistent pattern emerges when speaking with operations and logistics leaders in manufacturing.
The carrier has the data, the 3PL has the data, the subcontractor has the data. But the manufacturer at the top of the chain, the one with the customer relationship and the compliance obligation, is working off reports, summaries, and phone calls.
A truck leaves at 6am and appears to complete its run of deliveries. What actually happens during the delivery is only uncovered days later, when a customer raises an issue.
Visibility exists at an operational level, but it doesn’t always translate into actionable intelligence at a business level where decisions are made, performance is managed, and risk is owned.
That is the gap. Not a lack of technology. A lack of connected actionable intelligence at the level of the business that owns the supply chain outcome.
What this actually costs
This gap has tangible, often underestimated consequences.
Delivery disputes are the most visible symptom. When issues arise, many manufacturers are still reconstructing events by manually chasing paperwork, calling carriers and tracking down drivers.
Even though ePOD now exists, if that data isn’t accessible to the manufacturer in real time, the resolution remains slow and reactive.
The more significant impact, however, sits in carrier performance management.
For businesses outsourcing transport, how is performance truly measured? In many cases, it’s monthly scorecards at best and gut feel at worst. Underperformance is recognised but not evidenced with enough precision to support meaningful commercial conversations or enforce service levels.
Then there’s compliance, an area only becoming more demanding.
Chain of Responsibility obligations, cold chain requirements, and food safety regulations all require a clear, auditable record of what occurred in transit. While that data often exists somewhere in the supply chain, accessing it quickly, confidently, and completely remains a challenge.
Why this hasn’t been solved yet
The technology required to close this gap isn’t new, so why does it remain unresolved?
Part of the answer is fragmentation. ANZ transport operations are complex. Fleets are mixed. Subcontracting is common. Different carriers run different systems, and getting consistent, structured data out of a fragmented carrier network is genuinely hard.
Part of it is the perception that solving this requires a wholesale platform replacement. That perception is mostly wrong, but it’s persistent, and it causes businesses to put the problem in the too hard basket rather than address it incrementally.
Compounding this, many solutions entering the market have been built for Europe or North America. They don’t always reflect Australia’s geographic scale, regulatory environment, or operational realities. The result is systems that partially deliver, but rarely fulfil their full promise, eroding confidence in the category.
What leading operators are doing differently
The organisations successfully closing this gap share a common approach and notably, none of them required a complete technology reset.
They’ve prioritised real-time visibility at the manufacturer level, not just within carrier systems. Operations teams can see where deliveries are, whether they’re on schedule, and what’s happening at the point of delivery as it occurs.
They’ve established an objective, verifiable record at the moment of delivery, time-stamped, geo-located, and captured in the field. Disputes shift from debate to evidence-based resolution in minutes.
They manage carrier performance with data, not intuition. Performance is analysed by route, driver, customer, and product, which enables informed, commercially grounded conversations.
And when a compliance question arrives, they can respond immediately with complete, auditable records rather than reconstructed narratives.
The conversation the industry should be having
ANZ logistics has already done much of the heavy lifting. Telematics adoption is strong. ePOD is well established. The foundational infrastructure is in place.
The next step isn’t more data, it’s better access to it. The question is whether that data remains siloed within operational systems or flows to the manufacturers and distributors ultimately accountable for supply chain outcomes.
The businesses that solve this problem will gain a clear competitive advantage over the next two to three years.
Customer expectations are rising. Compliance requirements are tightening. The cost of inefficiency is increasing. The data already exists.
The real question is whether it’s being used.
