Most warehouses have now embraced data-capture technology – like Zebra Technology scanners, printers, and mobile computers – to manage goods and generate reports on breakages, returns, and more.
This blog will explore how warehousing operations can improve their visibility of goods in real-time and prevent assets from going missing or being stolen,
1) What Are The Symptoms Of Poor Asset Visibility?
2) Areas To Consider When Addressing Warehousing Visibility
3) The Benefits Of Using RFID Technology
4) Exploring Your Options
What Are The Symptoms Of Poor Asset Visibility?
When customers reach out to MiTEQ about digital transformation for warehousing and distribution facilities, they face three key challenges: delayed deliveries, increased overhead costs, and improved transportation risks. Each of these challenges is a symptom of poor real-time visibility.
- Delayed Deliveries:
When goods move throughout a traditional supply chain – relying on legacy point-in-time systems – it is practically impossible for stakeholders to accurately monitor variables such as vehicle locations, driver performance, ETAs, and on-ground activities. This can lead to chaotic communication chains, product losses, and tarnished supplier credibility. In the long run, delayed deliveries convert into lousy customer experiences, which, in turn, convert into lost business, all because you didn’t decide to invest in best-in-class real-time location system solutions.
- Increased Overhead Costs:
With real-time visibility of your supply chain, you can identify where fuel consumption could be minimised, damages could be prevented, or processes could be made more efficient. Point-in-time systems are brilliant at communicating information at specified check-in points along a good’s journey. Still, they leave you blind to see how goods are handled, transported, or treated between any two check-in points. The outcome could be more-than-optimal productivity and increased overhead costs.
- Increased Transportation Risks:
You cannot predict every mishap between check-in points; however, you need real-time visibility to proactively communicate problems, rectify errors, and overcome developing obstacles – such as excessive traffic, theft, or accidents – without real-time visibility of goods.
Areas To Consider When Addressing Warehousing Visibility
So, what does “real-time visibility” mean, and how can it be created?
Real-time visibility means generating live information relating to your goods’ whereabouts, condition, and status at any given point along their journeys. Within supply chains, real-time visibility is critical for helping business leaders quickly identify changes to workflows so that business leaders can act upon unexpected challenges in a practical, timely way.
Initial steps that can be taken to improve real-time visibility include:
- Implementing a Warehouse Management System – to allow you to keep more accurate, less corruptible records.
- Maximising managerial visibility – to help business leaders stay attuned to what happens throughout your facilities at any point in time. Mobile computing technologies are precious for these rapidly changing environments.
- Improving Product Labelling – so warehouse staff can quickly identify, spot and pick items.
One technology adds value to each bullet point mentioned above: RFID (radio-frequency identification) Technology.
The Benefits Of Using RFID Technology
RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology means warehouse operators can gather more accurate and reliable information about assets in real-time without scanning individual labels one by one (yes, MiTEQ can help you optimise for multi-order picking).
Loss Prevention Magazine interviewed several of the largest European logistics brands – collectively purchasing 1.87 billion RFID tags a year – and discovered that RFID technology was helping businesses to…
- Improve inventory visibility and accuracy (between 65-75% and 93-99%).
- Optimise stock holdings (including reduced capital outlay and improved productivity)
- Reduce shrinkage losses
- Reduce staff costs
- Generate greater overall returns
Exploring Your Options
When deciding how to use real-time visibility solutions, such as RFID technology, you must work with a supplier that has experience deploying real-time location system solutions. The MiTEQ team has a wealth of experience within the Transportation, Logistics, and Field Service sectors. It can help you source, provision, and deploy best-in-class mobile technology solutions to track assets, minimise downtime, maximise productivity, and generate meaningful returns.