The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, has been a decade in the making. It is the converging of IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) and is driving the transformation of connectivity, intelligence, and flexible automation in the manufacturing industry. Industry 4.0 is a sort of technology toolbox with the goal of digitizing data, in real time, and improving the agility and resiliency of your company. In addition to manufacturing and production operations, Industry 4.0 applies to warehousing as well. This acceleration of digitization in the warehousing is also aptly named Warehouse 4.0.
Warehousing in the Fourth Industrial Revolution consists of a few different tools. The first is the movement to high-level cloud computing. Cloud computing allows for easier scalability, increased flexibility, real time data retrieval, and much cheaper data recovery. Along with that comes the addition of big data to analyze in real time and adjust to large changes in the industry i.e. Covid-19. One of the biggest tools is the ability to automate processes that are currently repetitive tasks formed by a human. These software cobots (collaborative robots) work hand-in-hand with humans to give the human more time to work on problem solving and other high-level functions. Areas of improvement in the warehouse can range from receiving, shipping, stocking, storing, and picking. Warehouse 4.0 allows firms to have a digitization roadmap to reduce operating costs, increase productivity, improve order quality, and better satisfy customers.
StrataFlows can be your first step into transforming your business with Warehouse and Industry 4.0. StrataFlows is a cloud computing platform that has helped firms optimize throughput, increase continuous improvement, keep material flow moving efficiently, as well as improve supply and demand planning. All of our modules utilize software cobots to automate processes that shifts your employee’s time from manual data entry to more decision making. We can help you work towards a JIT (Just In Time) inventory system with our Material Availability and Inventory Count modules.
StrataFlows also helps to keep your suppliers accountable with our Supplier Expedite module. Keep production moving by tracking what suppliers keep their deliveries on time and which ones give you the most trouble. The Hot Parts and Issue Tracker modules from StrataFlows allows you to systematically perform root cause analysis on issues, which ultimately leads to happy customers. Click here to try a free trial of StrataFlows now.
