The entire business industry relies so much on inventory management. Despite their seemingly endless inventory, even utility companies rely so much on managing their inventories to maximize profit and minimize extraneous losses. Ever since the industrial revolution, inventory management has become an industry in itself. The ability to produce almost countless products for continuous days paved the way for the concept of inventory management.
While manpower can limit the number of products a factory can produce, modern manufacturing systems can produce and transform millions worth of products in just a single day. For example, 3M, a daily product applications company, produced two billion N95 masks in a single year to help respond to the problem of COVID in 2020.
The world has changed from the early days of the industrial revolution. It is vastly different from how it is currently. The brute force type of manufacturing transitioned to something only fiction writers have ever dreamed of. Through the help of computers, even more products are produced at lighting speeds.
We even have countless drones doing the tail-end of the entire business process. Delivery from one business sector to another is rendered easy and convenient by the industrial application of drones. As more and more ways are being discovered to make drones as efficient as ever, basic issues on delivery are answered as a consequence.
What are the new trends when it comes to managing business inventory?
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is now powering the most complicated inventory management systems. Thanks to innovative software developers, most software systems already integrate machine learning into their processes. Machine learning makes their processes a little easier. Amazon, for example, has integrated artificial intelligence to enhance customer experience by adopting user preferences.
Artificial intelligence is now also used to manage the most complicated part of their inventory management — delivery systems. There is news that to improve safety and make it more efficient, Amazon implemented artificial intelligence to its camera systems to detect when their drivers are almost at the brink of falling asleep. Amazon’s massive warehouse system is so advanced that they can detect whether they should prepare to deliver a product that you haven’t even ordered yet.
Single to Multiple Channel Retail Solution
Transacting through multiple channels is now made possible by most companies to expedite inventory bottlenecks. Almost everyone is shopping through online channels nowadays. If you have encountered early versions of e-commerce, only singular payment avenues were available per website. There was no universal method of transacting with a fast food joint and a luxury retail brand. They have dissimilar payment methods, and you have to arrange delivery differently. As a solution to the growing backlogs of inventory, multiple channels of transacting became available. Successful companies employ different payment avenues to broaden the market they are dealing with.
Preference and Personalized Shopping
In the first days of retail shopping, a personal injury attorney can make a killing because of the various accidents customers experience because of faulty inventory management. To maximize shopping space, large retailers place boxes and planks on top of displays. Nowadays, however, the shopping experience has become so safe and personalized, you don’t even have to show up in the store. Internet shopping and groceries can be done online and through a personalized assistant who will do the shopping for you. Even the way products are arranged on the website is specifically tailored to your needs. The cookie trail of data you leave helps inventory managers to predict how much of a certain product they should carry.
Radio-frequency Identification
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is now an important part of all inventory management systems in the world. RFID systems integrate the technology once only present in vehicle tollways in Europe. The RFID system is so fast and instantaneous; it has found itself very useful to inventory management. Different systems of managing inventory can be accommodated by RFID technology. The when, how, and where is easily covered by the data stored in the RFID, making it easier to implement first-in-first-out or first-in-last-out systems. Depending on the material, RFID also enables the tracking of mishandled products and wherein the supply chain was the product damaged.
Technology is making it easier for different companies to manage their goods. With the help of newly-made innovations, the challenge posed by numerous individual products is now reduced to basic numbers and systems. As technology increases the efficiency of these systems over time, we can expect faster output systems for the customer’s benefit.
