Inventory Management’s Future

Combining with the evolution of WMS user interface to take inventory management to a new level by allowing improved visibility and control. It takes both planning and execution. For decades, execution has relied on bar code data collection and wireless, system-directed material moves to exert better inventory control than paper-based processes.

The future as we speak for the inventory management include Real Time Location System (RLTS), Warehouse Management System (WMS).

RTLS solutions span multiple technologies, including ultrawideband (UWB) beacons, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons, as well as more traditional active and passive radio frequency identification (RFID). These technologies have existed for years and have continued to evolve, including new types of tags and readers.

RLTS

Companies with supply chain operations may remember the high expectations around RFID in the early 2000s. A massive rollout of RFID didn’t materialize, though it has become increasingly used in retail stores to track high-value items like apparel.

This new era for RTLS is different. It’s more targeted and builds on advancements like UWB that can offer accuracy within 10 centimeters.

RTLS analytics are evolving beyond the question “where is my asset” in looking at operational adjustments. For example, if some perishable goods go out of temperature range, or a shipment of high-value goods is split during transit, analytics can point to the best adjustments.

WMS

WMS has long used wireless bar code scanning and system-directed activity to exert control over inventory, but there are holes in that visibility. Having lag time since the last scan, and users can make errors or run across inventory shortages. 

WMS solutions need to be better at dynamic inventory control. A good WMS remains the foundation for inventory control. WMS can improve accuracy by directing workers on what items that need to be picked or replenished look, and what the unit of measure or quantity should be. If we consider that how most picking errors tend to happen, it’s usually not about a worker being in the wrong place, but picking the wrong thing or the wrong unit of measure at the correct location Inventory accuracy has a lot to do with how good your WMS is at providing the right information contextually to the material handler.

Co-existence of RLTS & WMS

Most warehouses have good standard operating processes and WMS capabilities to drive inventory accuracy and movement transactionally through the facility, so there may not be a need for real-time monitoring of on-hand values in every location, RTLS plays nicely with bar codes, since RTLS tags are often deployed at a vehicle or container level, with bar code scans offering a way to confirm load details or associate a tagged asset with load contents. There can certainly be a happy intersection between the use of bar codes, passive RFID and RTLS. There is not going to be an overnight transition away from traditional scanning.

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