In nowadays dynamic times the effective logistics and fast and effective warehouse processes are the main pillars of each warehouse. Modern technologies in logistics, such as flawless supply and clear warehouses, are saving the company's time and costs. In this article, we will introduce some of these technologies to you.
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology has been successfully applied in logistics for longer. RFID technology identifies the goods by scanning their code. It is used for monitoring the containers and real-time inventory of the warehouse.
source: Wikimedia
Just-In-TIME (JIT) logistics is being mainly used in the automotive industry. It prevents the warehouse from being overstocked, which lowers the costs. The JIT philosophy is to store only those inventories which are needed at the exact time. The correct unit comes to the production at the exact time and amount.
Many manufacturing companies use Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV) that deliver the units to the assembly line from the central warehouse. AGV lower the lead time of the products, which is the time that takes for the product to go through the production process. AGV are slowly getting replaced by Intelligent Guided Vehicles (IGV), which can communicate with each other and act autonomously.
Some warehouses, such as Amazon or BMW, use homing drones with built-in barcode reader and RFID scanner. They can make real-time inventories that save hours of work for the workers. Drones operated in Amazon can also prepare the delivery immediately after purchasing the order.
The modern zero-waste factories are trying to minimize their carbon footprint by recycling, digitizing the documents, and using reused packaging. Net-zero warehouses use as much energy as they can create themselves.
Digital transformation is moving forward. How? Find out in our next article about logistics trends of the future.
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