The emergence of high-end sensory devices and wide-range communication networks has enabled the creation of large and scalable IoT (Internet of Things) networks that can connect several devices under a single platform.
By using these new capabilities of IoT technology, industries are now leveraging its solutions to connect their machines, equipment, and assets to garner multiple benefits. These IoT solutions, as a part of a common network, allow companies to monitor their processes, eliminate bottlenecks, automate operations, and enhance the productivity of their legacy equipment.
All in all, these benefits allow companies to optimize their plant activities to achieve operational excellence. In the field of inventory management as well, IoT offers cutting-edge solutions that allow companies to keep a track of resources they generally require frequently.
IoT in Inventory Management:
Internet of Things as a telemetry technology enable companies to collect live information from end nodes on a centralized platform. In reference to inventory management, this data refers to the volume of raw materials or finished products a company holds. Provisioning of this inventory data help companies to manage their stock levels and adjust their production rate to ensure the required flow of finished products out of the manufacturing facility.
While there are several IoT solutions for inventory management, one solution that is common in almost every industry vertical is level monitoring.
Level Monitoring Solution for Inventory Control:
Industries run on water. Its applications as a universal solvent, coolant, and lubricant makes it an ideal resource for fabrication, washing, transportation, processing and diluting. Hence, it becomes important for companies to track and control the availability and consumption of water in their facilities.
Other liquids such as acids, fuels, juices, oils, milk, or chemicals are either used as raw materials or are the finished products of companies associated with industrial sectors like beverage, chemical, pharmaceuticals, or oil & gas.
With level monitoring solutions, industries can keep a track of liquid and accordingly maintain their inventory.
With the help of battery-powered ultrasonic sensors, the level of liquid stored in any tank, tote, container, or receptacle can be measured remotely in real-time. This level data is then processed and calculated into the amount of liquid stored in the container, based on its dimension, shape, orientation, and level reading.
The amount of volume present in the container is then sent to a dashboard via gateways and servers, where an operator can read it to keep a track of available liquid.
The inventory management system using IoT, leverage this level monitoring solution to gather volume readings from all the tanks in a facility containing different liquids. Hence, even if a company consumes or produces different liquid types (like the O&G industry developing various fuels), clear visibility about the amount of available liquid can be kept at all times.
Inventory Management System using IoT solutions
On a large scale, the volume readings from all the tanks combinedly ascertain the total amount of liquid present in an entire facility. Hence, companies can keep a keen eye on their inventory at all times.
This inventory information along with providing real-time stock level information to the companies also offers numerous benefits. By leveraging the stock data from all the departments, a company can at all times have an overall status about all the processes occurring on a shop floor or a production line.
Not only for liquids but IoT inventory management solutions can also be used for solid tangible products. For large products that are either sold individually or in pallets, RFIDs and barcodes can be used to monitor their supply chain, while sensors and other hardware devices can be used to measure inventory of products that are sold by weight.
Hence, IoT offers benefits for every kind of inventory management needs:
● Alerts about inventory fluctuations:
Since IoT articulates the data on a mobile and desktop enabled dashboard in real-time, users can be alarmed whenever the stock decrease by a certain threshold. On the other hand, the increase in the threshold values for manufactured products in the inventory can also alert companies about the surplus.
Hence procurement or sales department can respectively come into action to either purchase the required raw material or vend out finished products. This help companies to adjust their production rate accordingly and ensure a continuous flow of resources and products, in and out of their facilities at all times.
● Inefficiency Identification:
IoT solutions for inventory management along with offering real-time inventory insights also help companies to make decisions to improve supply chain operations. By leveraging inventory data articulated over a period of time, companies can extract information about bottlenecks and inefficiencies that compels them to hold their products.
Hence, essential steps can be taken to streamline procurement, warehousing, and distribution processes of a company to ensure that the supply chain works without any discrepancies.
CONCLUSION
With the help of IoT technology, industries along with improving their monitoring and inspection procedures can also boost their inventory management practices. Its benefits in terms of remote monitoring and data analytics allow industries to manage their warehousing and supply chain operations effectively.
