Leverage the Power of Automated Mobile Inventories

Having access to highly accurate inventory data has become a modern business imperative. Leading 3PLs, Manufacturers and Retailers are all demanding higher levels of inventory accuracy than ever before.

Unfortunately, manual inventory counts are a labor-intensive, time-consuming process that demands resources from both people and equipment. To compound this challenge, manual counts are also often full of inaccuracies and riddled with human error. 

Consequently, many organizations compromise the frequency of their cycle counts – rationalizing that they can only afford to perform these inventories a few times a year.

Work smarter not harder

Today, the single largest expense for warehouse operation is labor. To keep up with fulfillment requirements, warehouses are hiring more and more personnel.  In 2016, a staggering 41% of warehouse managers reported an “inability to attract and retain quality hourly workforce” as one of their top concerns (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Warehouse & Logistics Data). This trend continues to be a major problem for warehouses and repeatedly shows up as a major challenge in the industry.

To meet the demands being put on distribution centers and manufacturers, many organizations are moving away from barcode technology, or other manual processes and turning to passive RFID. RFID readers are able to cycle count inventory without physically seeing a barcode, greatly improving efficiency since RFID scans can be done in seconds.

With fixed RFID readers placed on portals, doorways, or ceilings, you can determine exactly when and where material moves in your facility. Along with mobile, handheld RFID readers organizations are seeing dramatic increases in their inventory accuracy.

We are seeing incredible results with organizations that use mobile RFID readers to perform cycle counts throughout their facility. Many times this cycle count is done on a weekly basis.

But, there are some organizations that need an even higher level of inventory accuracy and are looking to execute cycle counts done daily. For organizations like this we have partnered with Fetch Robotics.

Perform cycle counts multiple times a day

Dedicated Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) can reliably and repeatedly travel to all the locations in your warehouse that you want scanned. In one pass, an RFID AMR can read RFID tags on both pallets at ground level and items on shelves dozens of feet above the ground.

The Fetch TagSurveyor automated mobile robots move steadily and consistently throughout your facility, which dramatically increases the chance of getting a good read from a tag. And because the AMR always knows where it is in your facility and uses multiple RFID antennas to collect data, you receive high-confidence location data in a short period of time.

By adding an RFID AMR to your total RFID solution you’ll be able to fulfill the promise of complete asset visibility and tracking without adding people or modifying your infrastructure. In fact, this automated mobile inventory system can relieve people from cycle counting and allow them to do more high-level work like picking, packing, put-away or receiving.

Automated Mobile Inventories – Customer example

One of our customers who manages military warehouses was receiving repeated increased scrutiny from auditors. They invested in AMRs to maintain precise record keeping with increased frequency of inventory counts across multiple locations.

Increasing costs by adding manual labor was not an option, so they turned to the use of RFID technology and inventory counting robots to solve this problem. The goal is to achieve a far more accurate picture of daily inventory availability to support the auditors requirements which benefits the equipment required to support missions in the field.

The Power of complete inventory visibility

A2B Tracking has been working with RFID technology for twenty years. And we have seen tremendous growth and improvements in the performance as the technology has developed. 

We are currently seeing incredible results with Passive RFID using both fixed and mobile readers. The organizations that we are working with are able to immediately improve their inventory accuracy and quickly realize the return on their investment.

Organizations that desire more frequent cycle counts or want to verify their inventory multiple times a day are challenged to find the labor to get this job done. Leveraging an automated mobile robot to perform these routine cycle counts is a game changer. That is why we have partnered with Fetch Robotics.

“The Fetch TagSurveyor technology combined with the A2B Tracking RFID platform is a very powerful solution for organizations that need to perform cycle counts multiple times a day.” Joe Lau, Fetch Robotics

The Fetch TagSurveyor solution combines world-class AMR technology with modern RFID and A2B Tracking’s asset management platform to provide 24/7 continuous cycle counting and inventory tracking. 

At A2B Tracking we feel that this is a very exciting development. The ability to perform cycle counts multiple times a day with automated mobile inventories is going to change how modern organizations operate and provide huge competitive advantages to those that can leverage it. To learn more about this AMR technology visit our Fetch Robotics Tagsurveyor page.