Summary
- Supply chains are constantly on the hunt for new warehouse technologies that can give them a competitive boost.
- The recent survey projects that nearly 63 percent of businesses do not use technology to track supply chain efficiency.
- By bringing-in automation to the warehouse, we can effortlessly raise the efficiency and accuracy of iterative and less exciting tasks.
- This blog will include an in-depth overview of how supply chain automation is redefining the future of warehouses.
Introduction
“Almost all quality improvements come via simplification of design, manufacturing, layout, processes, and procedures” the words by Tom peters precisely define the term redefining.
eCommerce warehousing has become the newest buzzword across the globe. Warehouse automation has become a gamechanger in supply chain management. Presently, most business firms are planning to turn digital to optimize the working framework to foster and maintain workflow consistency. As a result, several warehouse industries have begun to redefine the functional ecosystem by embracing various automation like automated dimensioning systems, smart robots, and drones to their warehouses.
Transforming supply chain management towards digital
Do you have any ideas about how traditional supply chain management varies from the digital supply chain?
In traditional supply chain management, the warehouse associates perform all warehouse activities right from stocking the in-house warehouse products to parceling them inside the boxes. In the digital method, you adopt modern technologies (autonomous mobile robots and autonomous guided vehicles) in the workplace to shrink manual efforts.
In the traditional supply chain, the data is processed in a scattered form, meaning that some information is kept physical, and some data are stored in the digital domain. By allowing the warehouse automation, we can rapidly amplify the warehouse potency and align all the relevant warehouse information under a digital roof.
How can supply chain automation add value to all size warehouses?
Supply chain management has gone so far, and warehouse automation is the latest segment that significantly shrinks long-term costs. As e-commerce continues to stretch exponentially, we need to revamp warehouses using the latest automation to maximize efficiency. By redefining the warehouse with automation, you can effortlessly lighten the functional workflow in the warehouse. So If you’re thinking of automating your warehouse, it’s a good idea to first figure out which places you’d like to improve.
However, before diving into that idea, you should be aware of the three key benefits of warehouse automation, which include:
- Improve workplace safety:
Ensuring safety in the workplace is the one pivotal part we need to address immediately. By providing better workplace safety with automation, we can engage employees to perform warehouse operations efficiently.
- Increased operational efficiency:
Warehouse automation isn’t meant to replace manual labor, but with the appropriate technology, we can shove the warehouse’s productivity. In other ways, we can use automation for various iterative and complex tasks, where the warehouse personnel spend more time to complete the tasks at the different steps of the order fulfillment process. Manual operations are bound to make errors at times, which is quite natural. But with the relevant automation, we can shoot up the operational competence in the warehouse.
- Reduced costs:
In most warehouse and distribution centers, several employees perform similar tasks at different shift bases every day; by installing suitable automation, we can promptly reduce the iterated manual works and boost up the warehouse potency effectively.
Top warehouse technologies for 2021 that will reshape supply chain automation in a significant way
eCommerce is skyrocketing in recent years, and consumers are likely to purchase almost all the products from online stores. Adding the essence, many eCommerce industries have improved the personalized online service based on the customers’ needs and requirements. At present most eCommerce businesses face an overflow of online orders, and various customers expect quick delivery of products. Several warehouse proprietors are pushing employees to keep pace on the top place to promote warehouse operations.
Here are some top warehouse technologies that have the potential to raise efficiency while lowering costs:
1. Automated dimensioning systems
A computer vision-based dimensioning solution is the recent advancement that changes the landscape of warehouse automation. This dimensioning solution aims to calibrate the products’ real-time dimensional information in less than a second. These automated dimensioners have two different ranges: pallet and parcel dimensioners.
The pallet dimensioner or otherwise called a freight-dimensioners is deployed in the warehouse to measure dimensional information, including length, breadth, height, width, and DIM weight of the large parcel crates pallets in the warehouse. The parcel dimensioners can estimate the dimensional data of small packages, cartons, and individual boxes in a short timeframe.
Besides, with these automated dimensioning solutions, we can integrate other devices such as label printers – to print the product’s invoice, barcode scanners- to navigate the product’s location, and weighing scales based on the customer requirements.
Below are the considerable benefits of automated dimensioning systems:
- Improved future capacity planning:
In the world of warehouse supply chain, space is the capital. The entire space allocation plan would fall apart if the measurements are incorrect. Centering the fact, we can position the automated dimensioning systems in the warehouse and distribution centers to scale-up the warehouse profitability by utilizing the space. These dimensioners help in planning and reorganizing the existing place within the warehouse for future capacity planning.
- Reduced manual errors:
In traditional dimensioning, warehouse associates utilize tape and ruler to calculate the dimensional measurements to estimate the product size, this is time-consuming, and in certain situations, incorrect dimensional information contributes to excessive shipping chargebacks. We can easily estimate dimensional details with 100 percent precision by acquiring automated dimensioning systems.
- Reduced shipping cost:
The most popular source of annoyance for warehouse owners and consumers is excessive shipping tariffs. We need to generate pertinent dimensional data of the product to eliminate this unnecessary conveyance expense. By bringing in the automated dimensioning systems to the warehouse environment, we can quickly get the product’s accurate dimensional data.
2.Autonomous mobile robots (AMR)
AMR is a cutting-edge technology that can perform various warehouse tasks. These robots can understand and move through their environment without the assistance of warehouse personnel. These intelligent mobile robots are equipped with an array of sensors, allowing us to complete each warehouse task efficiently. AMRs can specialize in various areas, including high-level inventory control, assisting with the pricking process, and facilitating versatile sortation.
3. Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGV)
AGV is otherwise known as automatic guided vehicles. This computer-controlled wheel-based technology is developed by a blend of software and sensor-based guidance systems. Automated carts, unit load, Autonomous Guided Vehicles, tugger AGVs, and automated forklift AGVs are various types of autonomous guided vehicles.
The notable benefits of deploying Autonomous Guided Vehicles to the warehouse include high-level scalability, increased safety, decreased maintenance costs, cost management, and automatic line balancing. The Autonomous Guided Vehicles aims to bolster manufacturing production lines, storage, recovery, and a variety of sorting and picking operations in warehouses and distribution centers.
Conclusion
Warehouse supply chain automation will experience a significant transition in the coming years. We can rapidly increase companies’ agility, flexibility, and productivity by implementing prominent warehouse solutions.
To find out more, we encourage you to check out our company website at www.visailabs.com
Want to innovate in the era of dimensioning?
Deploy vMeasure Parcel Pro automated dimensioning system to your warehouse.
vMeasure Parcel Pro is a unique automated dimensioning solution designed from the ground up to produce dimensional information, including length, breadth, width, and height, of varied shaped products in less than a second. This solution comes in two various ranges such as vMeasure Parcel Pro S100 (built to calibrate the dimensional data of individual parcels and cartons) and vMeasure Parcel Pro S200 (designed to measure the dimensional data along with the DIM weight of large-sized packages, pallets, and crates under 2 – 3 seconds).
