Improve your Supply Chain Logistics by making it Agile and Resilient to changes.
Global developments have changed the habits of end consumers and companies are required to adapt quickly to not lose their trust. The company’s ability to move from an exclusively lean approach to an agile approach is crucial for redesigning the supply chain by implementing innovative solutions.
One of the first steps will be transparent communication, a fundamental prerequisite for strategically planning the entire production. Precisely because the supply chain is made up of different people that face sudden changes, it is essential to communicate quickly. And this becomes possible only if the basis is a clear sharing of information along the entire supply chain.
Thanks to the application of the Internet of Things, a company can easily obtain information on the traceability of products and process information on distribution, sale, or refinements on raw material prices in real time. In this instance, vertical technologies will be central to the entire system. By utilising warehouse management software (WMS), they will interact with the relationship of the various processes that manage the movements of people and goods.
This will lead to a significant improvement in the supply chain if all the partners and suppliers that are part of it are involved in an organic and integrated way. Big Data, however, will help to detect, locate and intercept increasing or decreasing demand trends. Only the interconnection and sharing of data allows access to this data and resources, for the benefit of all, contrary to the principle of possession of information which has always been considered a source of power.
Steps to implement a resilient supply chain.
- Analyse your intralogistics
- Map processes with suppliers and customers
- Identify the risks
- Manage the risks
- Adopt an agile approach and not just lean
- Automate
Automation plays and will play an increasingly strategic role for both ordinary and emergency management. For example, in the case of automatic vertical warehouses, the operator can remain in a fixed location and pick without having to move or interact with other colleagues. Social distance will be guaranteed as the minimum width of a drawer is 1.3 meters.
There are many automated solutions available but the ones that adapt more easily to any production reality are automatic vertical warehouses.
Their most obvious advantages are:
- Increased productivity and efficiency
- Reduction of errors in the picking phase
- Reduction of production costs
By integrating picking aid systems to automatic warehouses, operators will be guided in selecting the right products, considerably reducing the margins of errors and order preparation times. The double bay considerably improves efficiency: while one drawer is in the bay for picking, the elevator is preparing another for the next one. This will ensure increased productivity and ever greater efficiency within the warehouse.
Automated Picking, the perfect ally for Agile Logistics
Transparency and communication will help supply chain managers optimize all logistics processes. Picking is at the heart of warehouse activities and will be a priority when you optimize processes. Anthropomorphic robots, autonomous mobile robots and robots are all systems capable of improving and automating the picking phase.
However, the greatest advantages are noticed when they are combined with automatic vertical warehouses, because they make the entire process agile: picking / placing of items and handling within the warehouse. Automatic picking reaches levels of speed and efficiency that manual picking can never match, especially in situations where many codes are managed, and it is necessary to work quickly and without making mistakes.
