Warehouse Management is a significant part of any Supply-Chain cycle. Managing & controlling operations of a warehouse, on a day-to-day basis, is known as Warehouse Management. Basically, from a layman’s point of view, how you are managing your warehouse depends on three things – your inventory (types of goods lying in there), your business model, and the technologies you adopt in the supply chain.
Warehouse Management is not just how much space you got but how you use it! Definitely, technologies play a key role in shaping your business and managing your warehouse. What are the top technologies you should adopt to manage your warehouse? Let’s discuss!
Disruptive Technologies
Industries across the world are adopting modern technologies such as the Internet-of-things, Machine-Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, etc. in their day-to-day functioning businesses. In the entire process, two major things occur – Innovation and Disruption.
Thus, disruptive technology is actually the technological innovation that penetrates the existing market and causes disruption there. Smart Warehouses are the product of disruptive technologies such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Machine Learning (ML).
1. Smart Warehouse Management System & IoT
Warehouses play an important link in any kind of supply-chain facilitating storage of goods till they get dispatched at a target location. How to bring that global visibility to your supply chain in your business? The answer is WMS or the Smart Warehouse Management System, an IoT-enabled technology product.
You can get immense power-packed benefits from WMS that convert your traditional warehouse into a smart warehouse! Thus, managing your day-to-day logistic operations becomes easier now.
They are done by the Automated-Guided-Vehicles (AGVs), Telematics systems that help boost the accuracy and speed of the logistic processes, minimizing human intervention. WMS helps optimize all the inventory tasks and procedures in the system.
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2. Machine-To-Machine (M2M) Technology
The M2M technology helps streamline and monitor the automation process of your warehouse. You don’t need to watch manually how the orders are processed. Combined with WMS, the latest M2M systems can now control all the equipment in your warehouse and this is quite important for order fulfillment processes.
M2M helps you provide actionable insights to take better decisions viz., accuracy in information leads to demand forecasting, which helps you predict when to deliver a product!
3. Order Fulfillment Optimization Technology
In short, this technology can be described as an automated, efficient, and cost-effective solution over picking methods that are done manually. It helps automate your warehouse processes as a whole.
- Pick-To-Light System – It helps direct your operators in the warehouse to reach product location through the help of specific light displays. It has immense ability to organize big volumes of orders picked at a time, viz., Plan, Control, and analyze the picked orders. It has a high level of picking productivity.
- Put-To-Light System – It helps direct your operators on how to allocate, where to allocate, and various products in the warehouse for respective orders. It has the immense ability to pick products from several bulk stocks. If you have a retail warehouse, this system could be an ideal choice. It facilitates high–speed order-sorting capability.
4. Voice Warehouse Management Systems
Voice technology is one of the most effective picking methods used in logistics management. The technology VWMS uses speech recognition as well as speech synthesis allowing workers to communicate within WMS. Spoken commands are given for picking, receiving, putting orders, and other warehouse shipping functions.
5. Warehouse Robotics Technology
Smart Robots help in the movement, sorting, and storage of your inventory in a warehouse. As a manager of your warehouse, you should pick that Robotics Technology that suits your requirement
The aforementioned description of technologies is not the end of technological intervention while dealing with multiple chores within the cycle of Warehouse Management.
There are plenty of other technologies available in the market. Pick-By-Vision technology, use of Drones, specific Labor Management System software, and many more. You should consult experts to decide which technologies suit your requirement, and your environment, facilitating smoother operations and supply chains of your Warehouse.
If you wish to uncover how your warehouse can be managed with simplicity – reach out to our technology experts today!