Stepping into the future: How digital twins will revolutionise your warehouse operations
In recent years, the logistics, warehousing, and eCommerce sectors have witnessed a remarkable surge in growth. This expansion has been closely tied to the transformative impact of technology on the way warehouses and the broader logistics industry function. Dexory has taken a part in this change as a logistics solution provider, with its digital twin platform.
First of all, what is a digital twin? A digital twin is a real-time virtual representation of a physical asset, system or process that exists in the real world. It can take multiple forms: a traditional 3D CAD representation, a 2D drawing or an advanced data dashboard. But a digital twin only functions to its full potential if it is maintained with up-to-date digital data, reflecting the changes happening physically, allowing retrospective analysis.
Digital twins in the warehouse
A warehouse digital twin, such as DexoryView, would typically replicate digitally the physical movement of goods, from inbound to outbound. It provides value and insights through visualisation, analysis and prediction. A real-time digital twin creates a bridge between data from existing warehouse management systems with live data from within the warehouse.
It gives managers the ability to:
Obtain more visibility and control over warehouse stock
Uncover trends via the historical data; extracting learnings for better decision making.
Forecast by using these trends to improve future planning and accurately track demand and business capacity.
Simulate and test scenarios in digital form before physical implementation, based on the latest data.
Driving profitability through digital twins
The digital twin aims to help operational teams detect issues ahead of time, reducing loss of goods and improving efficiencies and profits. The supply chain industry is prone to shortages, disruptions, and unexpected changes. Digital twins technology gives businesses insights into their operations to respond adequately by optimising resources adequately, and minimising losses.
This innovation is rapidly reshaping the warehousing industry, offering unprecedented insights, efficiencies, and operational excellence.
Digital twin in practice: How Dexory is transforming Menzies Aviation operations through AI and automation solutions
Menzies Aviation is an international aviation services business with operations worldwide, bought in Dexory’s AI platform and a fully autonomous mobile robot at its Heathrow cargo facility.
The need for greater visibility of inbound cargo, from understanding under-reported volumes and mis-declarations, which meant inaccurate data led to incorrect storage charges, reduced load efficiency and ultimately impact on profitability. Ability to optimise aircraft, freight and facility space was also important.
Dexory’s platform was introduced to track and find goods within the facility, by scanning and photographically capturing cargo providing highly accurate, real-time data. The autonomous robot runs nightly audits for inventory checking and generating exception reports highlighting UTLs (unable to locate pallets), misplaced goods and rack occupancy levels, delivering far greater accuracy of the warehouse stock. This real-time data is compared against the data in the Warehouse management system (WMS)
These were the immediate business impact after implementing Dexory’s solution:
More efficient operations - greater clarity on inbound and outbound loads
Saves valuable time - tens of hours per week saved moving from manual to automated robotic perpetual checks
Immediate financial benefits realised by reducing the number of misplaced and non-compliant assets.
Conclusion
In conclusion, digital twins will be crucial in the optimisation of warehouse operations, enhancing both efficiency and profitability of warehouses. The insights provided into real-world processes drive smarter decisions and preemptive actions, leading to streamlined operations and satisfied customers.
As industries continue to evolve, it's imperative that businesses embrace and integrate digital twin technology to unlock new horizons of success in such a competitive market. The journey towards operational excellence starts with the adoption of these visionary tools.
Read more on digital twin and with how data-led intelligence they are driving innovation in warehouses: https://bit.ly/3PzLkrt
