As business grew, inventory tracking was becoming a serious headache for The Window Outfitters. An Internet-enabled tracking/picking solution from Voodoo Robotics cleared things right up.
Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
Dallas-based manufacturer The Window Outfitters (TWO) does a bustling business selling high-end window shutters for both residential and commercial buildings. In the decade since its founding, the company has expanded its product offerings from its original line of timber shutters into a full array of wood and aluminum window furnishings, which it sells to retailers, distributors, and contractors worldwide.
While that type of fast-paced growth is great for the bottom line, it can create problems elsewhere in the organization. That was the case at TWO's Dallas manufacturing/distribution site. As volume grew, the company found it increasingly difficult to keep tabs on materials and goods flowing through the facility, which made it tough to figure out how much to order from its suppliers
In essence, what the company needed was an end-to-end tracking system—one that would allow it to determine the exact status of inventory in its warehouse (what raw materials it had on hand) and on the manufacturing floor (how much was currently being used for work in progress) as well as monitor the status of orders (which ones were complete, which ones were still pending, and which ones had shipped). Above all, the company wanted a solution that would automatically gather and update that information, allowing it to instantly calculate, based on preproduction and postproduction orders in the pipeline, what and how much material to order.
In its search for the right software, TWO initially considered high-end material requirements planning (MRP) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) offerings as well as warehouse management systems (WMS). But in the end, it chose none of the above. Instead, the company went with the SKU-Keeper suite of products from Voodoo Robotics, a Plano, Texas-based warehouse automation specialist.
Designed as an IIOT (Industrial Internet of Things) solution for the warehouse, the SKU-Keeper system combines hardware and software to track inventory as it moves through a warehouse and/or manufacturing operation. Using wireless sensors integrated with a cloud-based inventory management system, the solution not only functions as an inventory tracking tool but also offers full pick-to-light capabilities.
"The system is both and neither an inventory management and a pick-to-light system," says Trevor Blumenau, founder and CEO of Voodoo Robotics. "It's a cloud display device that can supercharge an existing picking and packing operation."
SKU-Keeper tags, which are four- by two-inch battery-powered devices that resemble an old-fashioned pager. The tags, which are attached to inventory storage locations (anything from racks and shelves to shipping and receiving bays), keep track of the SKUs (stock-keeping units) at that location. Among other advantages, the solution is both flexible and scalable, allowing users to move tags from location to location as needed as well as add tags as business grows.
TWO implemented the project in phases. It initially installed 150 SKU-Keeper tags on its key inventory items—long aluminum extrusions—at the Texas warehouse. The tags, which were attached to the racks with industrial double-sided tape, keep track of the quantity of each extrusion as well as the color and type. Anyone can push the button on the tag to see exactly what extrusion is stored in that slot, making cycle counts easy.
Once it became comfortable with the system, TWO expanded access to the order pickers, enabling them to use their desktops, tablets, or smartphones to locate items for orders. For help finding a product or material, they simply click on the item on their device to activate its SKU-Keeper tag. The device lights up with the picker's name, the SKU, and the quantity to pick.
As for the cost, Voodoo offers the SKU-Keeper suite via a hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) model, leasing the tags at a nominal cost of about $5 per month. Customers can rent extra devices during peak periods and return them when activity subsides, paying only for what they need.
TWO executives say the new solution has accomplished exactly what they hoped it would do. "SKU-Keeper saves us tons of time every month when it's time to do cycle counts. For the most difficult items, all we have to do is push the button on the tag to verify the count," TWO Procurement Coordinator Kramer Bailey said in a statement. "Figuring out what to order from our suppliers is way easier now."
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.