India is a land surrounded by oceans in the peninsular regions. This makes up a majority of the land’s surface. Export-import trade relies a lot on a continuous flow of the supply chain, which stands true for most businesses. A warehouse is a key factor to keep the supply chain effective!
Let’s first see what is a warehouse. So if we go by the definition, a warehouse is a large building where raw materials or manufactured goods may be stored before their distribution for sale.
About a decade ago, the term “warehouse” would conjure images of dusty godowns – buildings of an undefined shape located in the outer limits of cities, structures with no more than 4 walls, stacked haphazardly with inventory from floor to ceiling. Fast forward to 2020, and warehousing is not only a highly sought-after sub-set of the commercial real estate asset class but is also a pivotal part of India’s logistics sector.
However, there are still many warehouses that are old and dingy in which goods can neither be stored properly nor be secured adequately. It is estimated that India will draw a whopping $10 billion investment through the warehousing and logistics industry in the coming years, thereby, fostering the demand for smart assets.
With India running towards the development of new technology and efficient management processes, warehouses are not untouched. Companies like Amazon are managing warehouses very effectively and it is a lesson every conventional warehouse owner must learn.
For any supply chain to work properly it becomes inevitable that the warehouses are in good shape and the goods stored there are safe and secured.
Here’s a list of Smart Warehouse features that if implanted properly will exponentially increase the efficiency of the supply chain.
- Automatic Gate management:
A contactless Gate management system can track not only the vehicles passing to and for but also the visitors and employees through mobility apps. Applications can also be developed that can provide one-stop access and billing requests, electricity and water consumption, among many other features.
- Introduction of Robotics and Virtual AI Tours:
The introduction of Robotics and automation could prove to be next-generation work for industrial and logistics across India. This will help companies who want to start operations in India to make their business decisions significantly faster and thereby go to market faster.
Automation will help clients reduce their operating costs and optimise their inventory and workforce, thereby gaining a competitive advantage in their industry.
A virtual tour gives a 360-degree view of the park and will provide a real-time experience of the warehouses. In this current situation, this Virtual tour may prove to be beneficial for the safety of the working staff and other visitors.
- Keeping pandemic guidelines in mind:
The new Warehouse system should provide ready infrastructure to achieve the required operational facilities. From implementing contactless visitor management systems to security cabins equipped with temperature guns for daily screening, and features that ensure elevator buttons are pushed without contact and foot-operated hand-wash set-up.
It must be assured that both the employees and visitors are safe along with the goods stored there.
To include these smart and futuristic features in the warehouse, an overall warehouse management system must also be formulated.
Given that, we bring to you three exceptional warehousing technologies that are constructively shaping the warehousing sector of India and are sure to beget even more fruitful results shortly.
- Warehouse Management System:
A consolidated software that smartly manages every critical process of a warehouse cover to cover, a WMS provides the members of the supply chain with a detailed working view besides prominent real-time data.
A much-needed contrivance, it perfectly enhances the autonomous processes, delivering advantages like real-time access that improves discernibility, precise demand projecting, competent labour division, simplified internal processes, inventory and pick exactitude, and great supplier and customer associations among many others.
- Inventory Control System:
From automatically tracking huge shipments to ensuring stringent quality control, an autonomous Inventory Control System is a must-have for the rapidly growing warehousing sector.
A lot of warehouses still rely on pen and paper to figure out their inventory logging. Not only are these manual processes highly susceptible to errors but also cumbersome. Inventory Control Systems, on the other hand, include software and hardware that automatically manage the process of tracking inventory.
Based on the advanced wireless barcode technology, these systems function in real time and facilitate tracking of orders and shipments in a warehouse. It also enables systematized order processing and provides the most accurate reports that can be conveniently retrieved anywhere, anytime.
- IoT Implementation:
