A DHL white paper claims most companies are "sitting on a goldmine of untapped supply chain data that has the ability to give organisations a competitive edge".

The report, prepared by Lisa Harrington, president of the lharrington group LLC, says this wealth of supply chain data already runs the day-to-day flow of goods around the world.

Her white paper has revealed a small group of companies are using this data as a predictive tool for accurate forecasting.

"The predictive supply chain allows companies to start to sense and shape demand, streamline networks, improve agility and responsiveness," said the press release.

"Essentially, the predictive supply chain is a vital underpinning of a re-imagined, predictive enterprise," it said.

Data mining, pattern recognition, business analytics, business intelligence and other tools are coalescing into an emerging field of supply chain data science, the paper said.

"The implications extend far beyond just reinventing the supply chain. They will help map the blueprint for the next-generation global company" the insight-driven enterprise," says the DHL press release.

"At DHL, we're helping our customers get ahead of the competition by working with them to harness the wealth of data information from across their businesses, allowing us to develop smarter supply chain solutions that factor in their wider business operations," said DHL vice president Jesse Laver.

"Through better prediction of demand we have seen companies successfully cut 20 to 30 percent out of inventory, depending on the industry, while increasing the average fill rate by 3 to 7 percentage points," said the release.

"We also ensure our customers stay ahead of the competition by future-proofing their business. Resilience360 is a tool that sits at the heart of DHL's risk response control tower, allowing our customers to assess critical hot spots in their supply chains, visualize them and build a risk profile to initiate potential mitigation activities," it said.