Future of wearables in logistics

Hi I am Pranav Surendran, second year MBA student of ASB Coimbatore. Recently, I came across few interesting articles on wearables in logistics which I thought I should share through my blog post. 

No stranger to technological change is the logistics sector. In 2020, when standalone automated kiosks and tablets have become the standard, few warehouses would consider using a hand-written ledger or other analogue methods. These digital enhancements have allowed for greater speed and performance, but when it comes to logistics technology, there are still gaps to be filled.

In logistics, seconds are critical, where even a short delay in operation can cause more problems along the distribution chain. In addition, the need for precision in the detection, storage , and processing of packages is of great importance. Companies around the world face an annual shrinkage rate of approximately 1.44 percent on average; considering that the global logistics sector is worth approximately EUR 5.5 trillion, these losses and inefficiencies add up to billions missing from the company's balance sheets.

The quest for solutions to these problems has been initiated by major corporations. There's a lot of potential in wearables-technology that you can wear on your body and use to boost the logistics processes, as the name suggests. There is a great deal of this technology available here and now, though others remain just beyond the horizon. In any case, these devices could describe the future of logistics technology, and businesses seeing the next competitive edge are already seeing increased adoption.

Employees don't have to return to a kiosk with wearables to enter data or cart around a tablet device when multitasking on their daily job duties. In the same way, our smartphones vibrate or ring to alert us to new messages and calls, so when new data arrives over a 5G network, wearables will also provide warnings. The potential for improved worker productivity and reduced stress in a fast-moving work setting is significant with the right wearable technology.

However, the logistics industry has only recently jumped on the wearable trend, as with most large-scale shifts. Managers are reluctant to implement technology that for a significant period of time has not been widely used. This hesitancy has been consistent in the worldwide logistics departments and warehouses, but the old way of doing business is evolving rapidly.

For logistics organisations committed to keeping their staff secure and managing operations efficiently, social distance enforcement has become a priority. In the battle against COVID-19, the advantage of wearables in reducing interaction between employees while streamlining their duties has triggered an accelerated push towards the adoption of this technology.