Time again… Were you one of the cheering enthusiasts in the 2003-2005 Wal-Mart wave of RFID frenzy? Or a lurking skeptic hoping for failure and “told you so”? I was myself caught somewhere in between – certainly seeing the huge potential in the technology, but also frustrated by the then-prevailing approach that mandated involvement by so (or too) many players in the supply chain. What makes it different now?
Are you dreaming about the perfect supply chain where processes integrate seamlessly to link demand with matching supply? Now is the automated and undisrupted supply chain just a sweet dream? Maybe you spend your nights sleepless twisting and turning and worrying about how your supply chain is doing, and think of the operation as a football game. From day to day you struggle to be organized enough to defeat the opposing side (the erratic customers with their volatile demand).
The manager of a warehouse in Stow
bought automation so pallets would flow.
Without human touch
it handled quite much
- as long as demand was steady, but slow.
Want some thoughts on pitfalls in warehouse automation? Check out the blog post Automation & Flexibility – a contradition in term?
…to get the low hanging fruits? After having rambled on about the risks with big bang automation projects, I found a soul mate in Cliff Holste at Supply Chain Digest. He builds a solid case for automating pieces of your warehouse processes rather than the entire operation. Why?
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