Companies Spent Years Chasing Warehouse Visibility. Their Biggest Blind Spots Are Now Outside the Warehouse

Supply chain leaders have invested heavily in warehouse automation, transportation management systems and control towers over the past decade. Yet many organizations continue to struggle with costly disruptions that originate outside the traditional warehouse environment.

According to the MHI annual industry report, visibility and real-time operational data remain among the top priorities for supply chain executives despite years of technology investment. The findings suggest that many companies still face operational blind spots that existing systems do not fully address.

Increasingly, those blind spots are emerging in three areas that sit beyond the four walls of the warehouse: yard operations, packaging performance and construction material logistics.

Visibility Starts at the Yard

For manufacturers, retailers and distribution operators, the yard often represents one of the least digitized areas of the supply chain. Delays in trailer movements, inefficient dock scheduling and poor communication between transportation and warehouse teams can create significant downstream disruptions.

Lazer Logistics, a provider of outsourced yard management services, believes the problem is often not a lack of data but a lack of integrated operational analysis. The company's Premier Solutions Analyst (PSA) program was originally created in 2016 to help rebuild a major customer relationship by combining information from fleet, safety, billing and operational systems into a single operational view. According to the company, the approach has since evolved into a formal customer support model deployed across its network of more than 800 locations.

In one enterprise account, PSA-led analysis helped identify approximately $9 million in unnecessary operating costs while maintaining operational performance.

According to Stefanie Newsome-Ryan, Vice President of the PSA team at Lazer Logistics, customers increasingly need operational partners who can connect data across multiple systems and identify problems before they become disruptions. The company recently announced that it has doubled the size of its PSA team and added dedicated technology-focused analysts as demand for proactive operational visibility continues to grow.

Packaging Becomes a Supply Chain Decision

Another visibility challenge exists much closer to the product itself.

Food manufacturers and retailers increasingly recognize that packaging decisions can have significant implications for inventory management, transportation efficiency, sustainability goals and product waste.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), roughly one-third of food produced globally is lost or wasted. For supply chain teams, reducing that waste often requires improvements far beyond forecasting and inventory management alone.

Lacerta Group, a supplier of fresh food packaging solutions, operates at the intersection of packaging performance and supply chain execution. The company develops packaging products for fresh prepared foods, produce and grab-and-go meal categories, helping retailers and food producers balance product protection, shelf life and sustainability requirements.

That makes packaging more than a branding exercise. When packaging affects spoilage rates, transportation durability and inventory longevity, it becomes an operational factor that influences replenishment cycles, waste reduction efforts and overall supply chain efficiency.

Craig Muldrew, Vice President of Marketing at Lacerta Group, has highlighted growing pressure on food producers and retailers to meet evolving consumer expectations while navigating increasing sustainability and regulatory requirements.

As a result, supply chain leaders are paying closer attention to packaging performance as a lever for improving operational outcomes rather than simply enhancing product presentation.

Construction Logistics Faces a Different Visibility Problem

Visibility challenges become even more complex in construction supply chains, where materials frequently move directly from production facilities and distribution centers to active project sites.

Unlike traditional retail distribution networks, construction logistics often involves oversized freight, specialized transportation equipment and constantly changing project schedules.

Research from McKinsey & Company has shown that large construction projects routinely experience delays and productivity losses tied to coordination and logistics inefficiencies.

Twisted Nail, a freight brokerage specializing in construction materials and aggregates, works with projects ranging from manufacturing facilities and sports venues to renewable energy developments.

The company operates in a segment where timing can be as important as transportation itself. A shipment arriving too early can create congestion and storage challenges at a job site. A shipment arriving too late can delay contractors, equipment deployment and subsequent construction phases.

Lazer Logistics, Lacerta Group, and Twisted Nail illustrate how visibility gaps in yard operations, packaging, and construction logistics continue to create operational costs across supply chains.

Hunter, who founded and leads Twisted Nail, works extensively with large-scale construction material movements and heavy-haul transportation. The company's experience reflects a broader industry challenge: maintaining visibility across multiple suppliers, carriers, contractors and project stakeholders that may all be operating on different timelines and systems. As infrastructure, manufacturing and energy projects continue to expand, effective coordination of material flows is becoming an increasingly important competitive advantage.

The Next Phase of Supply Chain Visibility

Although yard operations, packaging and construction logistics may appear unrelated, they share a common characteristic: each represents an area where fragmented information can create significant operational costs.

For years, supply chain technology investments focused primarily on transportation and warehouse execution. Those investments delivered meaningful gains, but many organizations are now discovering that some of their most expensive inefficiencies exist outside traditional logistics systems.

Whether the challenge involves trailer movements in a distribution yard, food waste driven by packaging limitations or material coordination on a construction site, the next phase of supply chain improvement will likely depend on connecting information across functions rather than optimizing individual processes in isolation.

The result is a broader definition of visibility - one that extends beyond tracking inventory and shipments to understanding how decisions made across yards, packaging operations and material networks affect performance throughout the entire supply chain.