Warehouse management includes day-to-day industrial operations. Activities may include receiving inventory from manufacturing sectors, shipping, returns and dealing with distribution – whether or not inventory is centralized in one unit or many. Safety also needs to be monitored and maintained.

These activities can be managed through an independent warehouse management system (WMS), or software integrated into enterprise resource planning (ERP), or supply chain management (SCM) systems overseen by human operators.

This core component of the supply chain is required to ensure the smooth transition of sourced material to product manufacturing and on to other destinations. Without organized and safe warehouse management in place, the entire supply chain is at risk of disruption.

DHL’s “Vision Picking”

DHL operates in 220 countries and manages a staff roster of roughly 350,000. The company needs to receive packages and employees must then locate, pick and move these items elsewhere during the shipment process.

The RF scanners commonly used are a time-consuming method for doing this and DHL hoped that new technologies could improve productivity in its warehouses.

The company chose to pilot augmented reality glasses. Known as “Vision Picking,” employees equipped with the AR headsets are given a stream of information on where items are located and where they need to be placed. DHL has been able to eradicate paper instructions by investing in the technology.

By freeing up employee hands while also making sure the information they need is always available, productivity has increased by 15%, picking accuracy has risen by 25% and training times have been cut by 50%. The smart glasses will now be rolled out to additional facilities.

Target’s $7 billion supply chain spend

US retailer Target has allocated $7 billion to revamp its supply chain over the next three years.

In the hope of building a smarter supply and distribution network, Target used a new facility in New Jersey as a testbed to trial “new inventory positioning logic,” an in-house solution that combines algorithms and automation to manage merchandise levels, focus the supply chain team on upstream inventories and manage strategic inventories based on consumer demand or sales events.

This resulted in 40% fewer out-of-stocks than before and the use of automation has given the company the ability to customize shipments. This has reduced store labor (without the need for additional physical outlets) and improved delivery times.

The solution will be rolled out to more stores in the future.