Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

Are you getting the most out of your warehouse?

Quite a few business decision-makers spend a ton of money on their warehouse—to the tune of about USD $350 billion annually, according to McKinsey. That already steep spending is growing significantly by the year no thanks to rising costs and shrinking pick sizes, thereby making it imperative for organisations to derive as much value from their warehouse as possible.

So, are you getting the most out of your warehouse?

It is a question you will need to ponder on because the warehouse is at the core of your supply chain. It is the central location of the products you are offering, a storeroom for your goods and raw materials, and the repository of your security stocks—all the products ready for shipment upon the request of customers. It can even be the centre of quality control, where you can track your finished products and then identify and isolate defective ones, and monitor the shelf life of perishables, if any.

In other words, the warehouse is essentially the centre of your business, and this is the reason you need to modernise it to streamline processes, optimise operations, reduce pain points and complexities, and boost overall efficiency and productivity. This is especially true today in a highly fluid market that, as the pandemic proved, is always at risk of constant disruption.

Modernisation, in this case, means shifting to digital or utilising available and appropriate digital technologies. In fact, digital transformation has become the biggest accelerator for growth, efficiency and innovation that enables businesses to improve their current supply chain operations. At the same time, digital transformation is helping organisations build long-term resiliency by expanding their ability to quickly adapt and recover from disruption.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW A WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM CAN HELP YOU MODERNISE YOUR WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS.

The process, though, is no one-off. It takes a series of steps and some time to accomplish digital transformation in the warehouse. You will, among other things, have to re-evaluate your supply chain approaches, establish new long-term digital stratagems and, perhaps most importantly, start utilising new technologies and digitalisation solutions.

These solutions are starting to span Industry 4.0 technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine-learning, drones and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)—and these, indeed, are the innovations that will shape the future warehouse. But these technologies may still be a far-off destination for most organisations that are still early in their digital transformation journeys.

In such a case, a good start would be to use tried-and-tested technologies in the warehouse, like mobile computers, barcode scanners and wearable devices, which represent easy and cost-effective ways for your organisation to quickly accelerate your digitisation efforts. These mobile systems, while not as “sexy” as Industry 4.0 solutions, can give you real-time visibility into your inventory, assets and workforce, thereby making it easy to efficiently and accurately collect, share and even use data.

You can also leverage a cloud warehouse management system (WMS), like the Zebra-validated AC2 Wave WMS, which allows you to manage every aspect of your warehousing operation—from the simplest to the most complex—in a simplified, convenient manner.  The AC2 Wave WMS, in particular, is specifically designed to keep your organisation ahead of the curve in these rapidly digitalising times because it is:

• Cloud–native. Being cloud native, you will not have to worry about maintenance costs for the backend server and OS. The apps you will use are also powered by Microsoft Azure, ensuring maximum system uptime and data security.
• Configurable. AC2 Wave WMS is specially designed to handle all your warehousing requirements and can be configured to meet your operational needs—whatever they are.
• Scalable. The AC2 Wave WMS starts with five users, but you can add more moving forward as you scale your business.
• Automatically upgradable. AC2 Wave WMS is upgraded routinely as new features and patches are deployed automatically with no additional costs and effort. Just as important, these updates are automatically pushed into connected devices as well.
• Intuitive. The user interface of AC2 Wave WMS is easy to use, allowing your staff to learn it easily so they can use it to get work done in the shortest possible time but with optimal efficiency.
• Connected. The AC2 Wave WMS is connected to popular e-commerce sites, thus allowing you to do business easily and conveniently.

Transforming your warehouse into a modern, digital one will take time. But if you do it right, you will be able to keep pace with the changing times and, more importantly, stay ahead of your competition.

DOWNLOAD THIS BROCHURE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT AC2 WAVE WMS.

(0)(0)