Month: June 2021

How IoT Can Be Used in Warehouse management

With Advanced IoT Business solutions, Many industries have transitioned operational procedures from manual to digital. As the Sensors, Data storage, Internet, analytics become more agile, affordable, higher-quality, and better integrated. For example, learn about the numerous benefits of utilizing IoT solutions for warehouse management.

What is It and Who Uses It?

Effective Warehouse inventory management aims to organize and control the flow of products within a warehouse’s operations. such actions include

  • Receipting inbound assets
  • Tracking goods activity throughout the warehouse 
  • Managing the quality of products during storage
  • Making sure the couch racking or shelving is up to code

Warehouse management systems are tools that companies purchase and use to satisfy their distribution channels and supply chains when spreadsheet tracks just won’t cut it.

So, then, how Specifically do you implement IoT in Warehouse management? A Warehouse uses innovative Technology to automate methods and diminish labor costs. 

For example, IoT- Integrated RFID Tags can save large data volumes- much more than standard bar codes. When the warehouse executes radio frequency identification readers, up to two hundred tags can be scanned at once. The data gathered from RFID Tags saved in a cloud-based platform and automatically concocted and examined. Now, the manager can compactly see consolidated inventory data through a visual dashboard. Serial numbers, Sizes, Expiration dates, entrepreneurs, and many more goods components can be added to the dashboard without any manual input.

Battery-powered Sensors are another form of IoT Technology that can better warehouse performances-they allow managers to be more careful over the warehouse’s commodities. The warehouse’s Temperature, vibrations, humidity, and light motion can be tracked. therefore diminishing the cost of spoiled goods 

Challenges of Traditional Warehouse Inventory Management – And How IoT System Management Can Help

Various Challenges are intrinsic to traditional (manual) warehouse inventory management. However, IoT Solutions for warehouse management can drastically decrease the circumstances and make it easier to handle them.

Locating Inventory 

Identifying the exact location of every product in the warehouse should be very difficult-especially one with multiple floors. Therefore, IoT Warehouse Management provides for the tracking of products across all floors.

Monitoring 

Do you identify what is coming in and out of your warehouse? Are you projecting and maintaining order strictly? If not, IoT solutions for warehouse management can track product movement and use analytic models to foretell future demand.

Warehouse Space 

Is your inventory being stocked efficiently and in a manner that enables it to be picked off the racks quickly? Setting up the comprehensive storage system manually takes lots of trial and error. However, IoT-integrated systems can configure an excellent and dynamic layout with little effort on your behalf. 

Equipment Maintaining 

If your devices fail, you will have to deal with downtime that will not please your distributors. Luckily, IoT solutions for warehouse management can track the performance and condition of your equipment.

Storing Inventory

Is your warehouse at a maximum temperature for supporting the quality of heat-sensitive products? An IoT warehouse system can monitor temperatures and different environmental parameters, keeping you out of situations where food products drop their freshness.

Benefits of Using IoT for Warehouse Management

We have addressed the difficulties in IoT warehouse management can quiet – now it’s time to take a deeper look at its advantages. 

Reduced labor costs:

An average warehouse with 100 non-supervisory workers might spend up to $3.7 million per year in labor expenses – this adds up to an unusual 65% of their operating budget. However, when you use IoT-integrated warehouse management, you are trimming down the amount of time it takes to organize products, find products, map ideal layouts, check equipment for maintenance, and more. With the automation of tasks comes substantial cost savings. 

Space Utilization:

The average warehouse size is roughly 180,000 square feet. While this may seem vast, nearly half of warehouse managers have difficulty maintaining the space effectively. IoT warehouse management systems help the managers accommodate as many goods as possible with their space. Programs can track the entry and exit of goods and, thus, easily find vacant spots for the allocation of products. 

Real-time data sharing:

let’s say, for occurrence, that your IoT warehouse banks food products that must keep at a specific temperature range. If the warehouse atmosphere gets close to leaving that range, alerts sent to the manager can take preventative actions and evade product wastage. 

Global supply chain visibility:

About one-third of warehouses do not use sufficient data assistance methods. This means that they aren’t obtaining complete data on their market’s supply and demand. With the advanced analytics available in IoT warehouse management software, a manager can view the different logistics levels and take the market status into account when optimizing operations. When you incorporate IoT into your warehouse analytics, you can manage procurement, scheduling, and other procedures based on inventory stock levels.

Optimize Your IoT Smart Warehouse With Bridgethings 

The implementation of IoT in warehouse management systems enables managers to optimize methods and assignments under advanced analytics. As a result, the need for manual intervention has been reduced, and warehouses can fully optimize allotted space for goods. Furthermore, IoT sensors allow the quality maintenance of perishable goods. 

Bridgethings can assist you to deploy the most efficient software integrated with IoT devices of any kind to digitize various operations inside the warehouse facility, including real-time inventory tracking, workflow clarity, and demand prediction algorithms. If you’re ready to automate your warehouse processes and save time and resources, reach out to our team for a consultation.

Assuring Business Continuity using IoT – Remote Monitoring & Management

COVID -19 has forced us into humanity’s biggest crisis. Although the viral threat has posed several obstacles, the world is combating it with courage and a practical approach to weeding the infection. Similarly, businesses worldwide are feeling pressure due to the current situation. They are finding ways to fight the temporary slowdown and distinct ways to handle the crisis.

As per PwC, about 80% of manufacturers assume that the pandemic will have an economic impact on their business. The research was done by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) recently. That is significantly higher than the 48% of cross-industry companies concerned about the same impact, based on CFO responses to a study by PwC. 

According to PwC, manufacturers are now reviewing their automation and contingency plans to face business during such times of difficulty. The Internet of Things (IoT) technology can support building powerful tools that can enable automation and remote management using the internet to stay connected to the IT, non-IT assets, and business operations of critical importance. 

In the contemporary situation of restricted people’s movements, supply chain encumbrances, and transportation disruptions, businesses are challenged with operations crises, especially those requiring humans to be on-site. IoT remote monitoring solutions can assist the challenge by handling repetitive tasks and using data to empower human intelligence anywhere, anytime, without being on-site.

The data from IoT solutions can play an immense role in tying the business mutually and managing the situation proactively for the operations and industry leaders. It can also help minimize losses that could be acquired due to disproportionate assets and enable the staff to stay updated on the operational spots without being on-site.

Remote Site/Asset Management to handle a crisis:

Why does a business need it?

Today, the word ‘remote’ has far more reason than at any time in the past. With social distancing and travel limitations in place, how can supervisors, administration heads, and industry leaders access their sites operating at various locations? The topic has been on everyone’s mind since things started getting severe. Daily technicians must also stay updated on the remote sites they have been assigned to and access data despite the physical distancing.

IoT Remote monitoring combines these dots and keeps the manufacturers updated on crisis planning and management.

COVID-19 has given us adequate reasons for businesses to understand the value of having access to data on fixed and moving physical assets from the comfort of home.

There are huge companies and facilities with a million dollars worth of assets located at various sites and require them to be up and running despite such challenges posed by a pandemic. 

For instance, let’s take huge telecom organizations requiring their cell towers to be operational at 100% uptime and efficiency. The solution can centralize these operations, access the far localities through constant and proactive monitoring, assist teams in scheduling maintenance on demand, and keep the managers on watch from the comfort of their homes. Similarly, a considerably different load pattern on the grid with commercial establishments shut down; however, the internal load is higher than ever because of the people staying at home. Power grid monitoring applications support proactive monitoring, instant anomaly reporting, and keeping teams prepared for discrepancies. This is a perfect case of how IoT can significantly regulate cities to become competent and ready for abnormal situations.

Furthermore, assuring the safety and protection of staff can also prove cost-effective because periodic maintenance drills now become maintenance on-demand. Similarly, proactive monitoring can help recognize breakage or shutdown. This can help avoid unnecessary downtime and losses due to it. 

Enterprise Continuity and digital transformation 

Companies must stay sustainable; despite the health crisis, organizations find ways to empower their staff through applications that can help them work from their home’s comfort and cater to customers’ demands even when the operations have gotten a bit challenging.

As far as established Business Continuity is concerned, most companies with IT operations in place are often equipped for remote support/working. All the staff has given essentials like e-mail ids, laptops, and cloud business suites to stay connected to their colleagues and customers. The problem arises for non-IT operations teams; how can they manage services that need humans to be present on-site? How are they combating the challenge of restricted movements? How is the section updated on asset health located miles away?

Purpose-built IoT Remote monitoring solutions can significantly help the business continuation needs of operations teams. Industries such as logistics for FMCG and essential goods are challenged with a limited workforce and a shortage of supply chain cohesiveness. Fortunately, these industries can leverage connected data and insights from the various IoT data points. With combined data, the supervisors and managers can proactively plan their operations with limited resources and be prepared for supply chain possibilities. In slight movements and cuts of supply from any specific region, the data-connected applications can help managers stay proactive, procure goods from other sources, and remain informed about sudden discrepancies during collections from one area to another. All this and more are due to staying connected using continuous data monitoring.

Also, in the case of managing large immovable assets such as HVAC, DGs, and other high industry machinery, how can facilities and admin teams stay proactive in preserving asset life cycle and engage in proactive maintenance activities while keeping the health and safety of their staff as a preference? This is where data intelligence can have a powerful impact on human intelligence! Remote site utilization driven by the Internet of Things can help teams scrap off the guesswork and move their services to digital and advanced forms so that technicians can automate the usual operations and step out only when required. This can be a vast spine for business continuity and disaster management for the organization and help make strategic moves that could benefit the business later.

This refers to operations managers at production units, facility managers at large buildings like airports and hospitals, etc., who can stay renewed on their remote works even during this lockdown period because of the leverage IoT has to offer from remote sites.

As white-collared operators stay connected to work and customers from their homes, IoT data and applications can enable field staff and blue-collared professionals to leverage data to stay connected and familiarized without stepping out. IoT, along with AI, automation, and remote management, can be a great tool to permit human intelligence and business operations with or without crisis!

To explore IoT Remote monitoring solutions for your business, write to info@bridgethings.com.

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