A Drone is inside the warehouse: The New Game Changer for the Logistics Industry

The future is not far away: Are you ready? An HD Camera, Image recognition technology, Sensors & Drone is going to change your warehouse experience. And if goods are tagged with RFID, Then nothing to say...just, WOW!!!

After many testing and successful usage by big size “Contract Logistics” companies and Drone service provider, the world is ready to adopt “Drone in Warehouse” at a large scale. Drone delivery of e-comm parcel has capture Media House attention and Headlines but air aviation rules and regulations are continuously challenging its growth, whereas usage of drone inside the warehouse is getting accelerated. The rise of e-comm business, retail industry, the complexity of managing thousands & thousands of SKUs and consumer expectations on short delivery times is intensifying competition for a warehouse to have its operations very efficient & accurate. In a nutshell the digital transformation of warehouse driven by efficiency (speed & scale), accuracy, safety & cost-benefit is underway across the world.

UAV (Unmanned aerial vehicle), in simple language popular as Drone, was born in 1935, when the British military produced radio-controlled aircraft. And today it is going to meet our specific needs inside the warehouse by adopting its layout and operational requirements. Until recently, drones were only known for flying outdoors at high altitudes, where geo-fencing norm, aviation rules & regulations make it more complicated. But today, the usage of a drone is happening in a smarter way than ever before. With its handy flying capacity at altitude with a combination of GPS, HD camera, Image recognition Technology, Big Data Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, WMS integration etc. we can use it inside the warehouse for various purpose says Inventory management automation. Here I would like to quote Matt Yearling Statement told to Supply Chain Dive.

 "If you're carrying inventory, you will have inventory accuracy problems and it doesn't matter what line of business you're in, everybody has this problem," Matt Yearling, CEO of PINC.

As you know most of the warehouse tasks are laborious, tedious, risky and expensive. And if you do not manage it efficiently and effectively it will result in- shutdowns, slowdowns and inaccurate inventory count that ultimately cause companies to loss of revenue.

Today’s drone-based solutions fully automating warehouse time consuming repetitive task & another key task such as:-

• Cycle count
• Inventory reconciliation
• Product search
• Element inventory losses
• Access to inaccessible space
• Calculate empty space
• Help you to optimise your cube space
• Increase accuracy & speed
• Reduce operational cost
• Security and surveillance ( especially for high-end products and dangerous goods)

The best part of the Drone is that it can be deployed without any human intervention and outside of the normal working hours. Sensors and algorithms empower Drone to map the entire layout and navigate in jumbled environments. Today’s drones are developed with senses to avoid any obstacles and well tested with safety in top of mind. With the utilisation of Drone the warehouse productivity, accuracy of inventory will be at its optimum level. These repetitive warehouse operations are well suited to Drone, where Physical inventory counting and cycle counting are happening on a regular basis. When it comes to repetitive scanning operations throughout Length, width and height of the warehouse, drones can be much faster and efficient option today than using any other available devices. The time and labour cost saving are major benefits in stock counting of large, uniform warehouses containing thousands of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) above your shoulder height and out of reach. Not only has this it’s also helped you to find any SKUs, located anywhere in the warehouse within few minutes compare to hours searching it manually.

As we had seen Drones have a lot of usage in the warehouse space, eventually within 5-6 years down the line warehouse drones will be used in a widespread across the globe.

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Don’t Forget to read ….Next Article “How Drones work in warehouse environment”!

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