Warehouse performance data: how warehouse motion intelligence transforms the world of logistics

Today’s software technologies, like warehouse management or warehouse control systems, offer plenty of possibilities to track and analyze performance data across the warehouse. By assisting to make sense of the vast amount of available data, developing trends, and helping in monitoring progress toward defined performance metrics, they have literally revolutionized the realm of the 21st century-logistics. 

Standard warehouse and constantly emerging innovations

As a rule, modern warehouses have different configurations according to the product  specification, customer requirements, service level offered, and other specifications. This facility supplies the market with a make-to-stock  production. In a make-to-stock production, the customer orders generate a process that starts in picking activity and goes on until the product is delivered to the client. As for the inbound area of warehouse, it encompasses the receiving of trucks until the storage of products in stock area. 

New top-notch, constantly emerging technologies keep on re-shaping the way the businesses operate. The industry of logistics is not an exception. Innovations define the ways industries operate and those, who’d like to preserve a competitive edge need to act in line with the harsh requirements of the world of today. The companies need to be agile, innovative, and ready to embrace the inevitable changes.

When data meets logistics

Datumize Motion Intelligence helps to optimize warehouse operations by generating timely insights about the employees and assets movements inside their facilities, leveraging smart data from their Wi-Fi access points and the Warehouse Management System (WMS).

What are 3 main challenges of warehouse motion intelligence?

Driven by the acute necessity of conducting the analysis of warehouse activity as a long-term objective, the main challenge is usually to find a cost-efficient technology to leverage previously neglected data and to transform it into valuable insights given the fact that the company’s facility is really huge.

The second challenge is to find data management experts that would organize, analyze, and extract data in a simple and non-intrusive way.

The third challenge consists in searching for an algorithm that would help to detect the vehicle behaviour between the activities, as well as to track the movement of people and forklifts.

Datumize Solution in a nutshell

Datumize Motion Intelligence solution allows logistic warehouses to gain insights on what’s really happening on their facilities and to start leveraging the valuable data that has long time been neglected.

By combining the analysis of information from the WMS with Artificial Intelligence algorithms, Datumize can provide the minimum distance needed to complete a mission. In addition, by using WiFi signals, it guesses the most probable real path that a vehicle followed, and, therefore, the associated distance, so it can be compared with the optimal one.

Moreover, Datumize is able to detect what a vehicle did between the activities, the time that it was stopped, and fix incorrect mission start information introduced by operators. Moreover, this solution enables the client to track the real distance the forklifts are performing. The report on activities can be split by type of activity, person, and equipment.

 In addition to the provided dashboard, this solution allows the warehouse managers to detect anomalies in the placement of products, organization of employees, and to improve the overall efficiency of the business.

 It’s crucial to note that even though the solution provides detailed paths, these are a result of an intermediate step required to provide the distance. Therefore, the exact shape of the paths must not be used as an exact truth.

What are the benefits of the solution?

The main benefits are warehouse optimization, detection of inefficiencies, product placement, and detection of abnormalities in forklift movements. Apart from the technical monitoring, Datumize solution is very time- and cost-efficient. It is also possible to customize the product according to the client’s needs, adding up some extra features.

 It’s worth remembering that gathering and analyzing warehouse performance data always takes extra time. KPIs will not improve overnight, but measuring them is the first step to improvement. If there is a considerable discrepancy between current performance and expected performance, there should be intermediate goals set to help the entire team stay on task. Reaching these in-between metrics can help show managers and employees that what they are doing to improve is really working.