June 27, 2025 Real-Time Visibility is Manufacturing’s Next Advantage

Real-time visibility helps manufacturers shift from reactive fixes to proactive decisions, unlocking resilience, speed and greater control.

By Ryan McMartin, product marketing manager, Parsec Automation

Today’s manufacturers operate in an environment marked by constant disruption. Supply chains span across continents and involve numerous suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors across different time zones, regulatory environments, and risk factors. At the same time, customer expectations are shifting, and production processes are becoming steadily more complex.

In the midst of this, many organizations still rely on siloed systems and delayed insights to make decisions. In fact, 98% of manufacturers report at least one issue with data within their organization, and 97% say these challenges impact collaboration and productivity. Given these obstacles, teams often only discover problems after they’ve caused costly delays or quality issues. This reactive model is not suited to keeping up with such a complex, ever-changing industry.

Manufacturers need to shift from reactive to proactive operations to thrive in this high-stakes environment. That shift starts with real-time visibility, which enables manufacturers to anticipate challenges, optimize performance, and drive more intelligent decision-making. This enhanced visibility is enabled by capturing and contextualizing data across production lines, supply networks, and quality control systems. But it’s not just about upgrading technology—it’s about turning these real-time insights into a true competitive advantage.

The Limits of Siloed, After-the-Fact Insights

Despite the prevalence of digital transformation in manufacturing, many teams continue to rely on lagging indicators to inform their most important decisions. They pull production reports at the end of the shift, review quality data after a batch is complete, and perform maintenance only after equipment fails. These lagging indicators keep teams in a constant state of reactivity, and more often than not, these reactions come after the damage has already been done.

These delayed responses introduce serious operational risks, impacting on-time delivery, increasing scrap and rework due to late-stage quality issue detection, and resulting in revenue loss and eroded customer trust from repeated disruptions. Additionally, teams are unable to adapt quickly to any supply chain shocks or demand shifts. Without real-time visibility, organizations lack the information to anticipate obstacles and make smarter, faster, and more informed decisions. The result: inefficiency, wasted resources, and diminished customer satisfaction.

What Real-Time Visibility Really Means

At its core, real-time visibility involves continuous data capture from production, supply chain, and quality sources, contextualization of that data to generate relevant insights within workflows, and instant access to key performance and process information for all stakeholders. These insights help drive more informed action at every level of the organization, from the production floor to the C-suite.

It also includes ensuring operational alignment across the organization to maintain a single source of truth and coordinated responses to change. This level of visibility is often powered by Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), which help bridge the gap between enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and the physical operations on the shop floor.

The Role of AI-Powered Tools

When MES and ERP solutions are paired with the power of evolving AI and ML models, the result is a step-change in how manufacturers monitor, learn from, and optimize their operations. These solutions help teams unlock new levels of intelligence and actionability across manufacturing environments.

Instead of simply reporting what has already happened, today’s models can predict what might go wrong and proactively suggest corrective action. For example, predictive alerts can notify teams of deviations in equipment behavior before failures occur. AI-driven forecasting helps adjust production schedules based on real-time demand shifts or supplier delays, and automated quality detection flags anomalies as they happen to prevent defective products from moving downstream. Additionally, workflow optimization engines suggest process adjustments to improve throughput or reduce waste.

This AI-driven approach is a far cry from the clipboards and spreadsheets still present on many shop floors. By augmenting human decision-making with automated solutions, AI allows manufacturers to act faster, smarter, and more confidently, especially in the face of increasing complexity. 

Enterprise-Wide Visibility and the Supply Chain

Real-time visibility isn’t limited to the factory floor. In today’s unpredictable global ecosystem, manufacturers also need to maintain end-to-end transparency across their entire supply chain. That includes visibility into where raw materials are sourced and when they arrive, the performance and reliability of suppliers, inventory accuracy, and total traceability to meet safety and compliance standards.

For instance, if a supplier reports a contaminated batch of materials, real-time traceability enables manufacturers to quickly identify which products are affected and where they were shipped, preventing costly blanket recalls. MES systems that integrate across the supply chain help manufacturers detect, assess, and respond to these disruptions before they become larger and more costly crises.

A Proactive Approach to Resilience and Growth

Manufacturers that maintain real-time visibility across operations are not just more efficient—they’re also more resilient. Over the past several years, global disruptions have tested virtually every supply chain. In 2024 alone, global supply chain disruptions increased by 38% compared to the previous year, driven by labor strikes, extreme weather events, and geopolitical tensions.

In these kinds of disruptive situations, companies with real-time insights are better prepared to pivot sourcing strategies before materials run out, reallocate production capacity in response to unexpected demand changes, prevent unplanned downtime with predictive maintenance insights, and uphold quality and compliance even amid workforce turnovers. Access to real-time data also helps leadership teams to make strategic decisions faster and with increased confidence and agility.

Ultimately, real-time visibility transforms decision-making from reactive guesswork to precise, data-driven action.

A More Visible Future for Manufacturers

The next wave of innovation in manufacturing isn’t just about automation or digital tools; it’s about achieving real-time visibility at every level of operations. Manufacturers can break free from cycles of reactive action by connecting systems, contextualizing data, and empowering teams with informed insights. Empowered by this information, teams will be more capable of anticipating and controlling the outcomes of any potential delays or disruptions.

With AI and MES technologies at the core, real-time visibility opens up new opportunities to increase efficiency, minimize risk, and adapt to change faster than the competition. Mastering this capability won’t just be an operational upgrade; it will be the defining factor that separates industry leaders from followers in the years to come.

About the Author:
Ryan McMartin is the Product Marketing Manager at Parsec, making him the conduit between all things sales, operations, marketing, and product development. Have an idea to make TrakSYS even better, be sure to let Ryan know! Previously, Ryan worked for PlanetTogether where he spent 9+ years selling, implementing, and creating learning content for APS software. Prior to that he worked as a Quality Analyst and LIMS Developer at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

Read more from the author:

Advanced Technology Uplevels Employees | Manufacturing Tomorrow, February 2025

Can Smart Tech Make Human Labor More Valuable? | Automation World, August 2024

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