How Digital Innovation is Changing Industrial Storage

As long as people use things, others will continue to make them. It’s the basic economic concept of supply and demand. Making and using things requires storing them as well as all the components along the way. Sorting and tracking those components, from raw materials to finished items, spare parts to toolkits means that someone must quickly and efficiently find out where what is needed can be found.

A variety of digital tools can help industrial entities maximize their storage of all components needed. Looking forward, some more exciting possibilities are on the horizon. These tools will allow the effective and accurate tracking needed for everything, from screws used on a daily basis to the order of corrugated boxes received last week.

Analog Supply Chains

The analog supply chain frequently acts as a set of separate, siloed units.  Product forecasting and development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sales each focus on their own task but do not interact effectively with the other steps in the chain.

In an ideal world, the process works relatively smoothly. Forecasting and marketing gauge demand and predict sales. Manufacturing assembles raw materials, parts, components, and people to establish the capacity to meet sales. Distribution coordinates the sales flow, and the sales force gets the product into the hands of the customer.

Frequently, however, the links in the chain do not communicate effectively with each other. Independence in processes and a lack of understanding of the roles of each part of the chain can lead to inefficiencies. Transparency, too, is missing from one link to the next.

Finally, and most immediately, many items need to be stored along the way. Storage information is not always available to people who might need it.

Digitization of Supply Chains

Digitization can create a digital environment that solves many of the inefficiencies of the analog supply chain. Digitization is not just the storage of information on hard drives or in the cloud. It rather involves a firm-wide integration and reimagination of culture.

This integration and reimagination will require the full incorporation of many digital technologies. These technologies include big data, augmented reality, 3D printing, the cloud, and the industrial Internet of Things (IoT). Through these technologies, industrial storage becomes more efficient and effective.

A New Vision

This new vision places the digitized supply chain at the heart of operations for every firm which distributes or manufactures anything. The new ecosystems will no longer be linear, linked chains. Rather, the new ecosystem allows each step to see and link with all the others, as well as provide significant and robust feedback loops within and between the links of the chain.

This is not just a head-in-the-cloud view. Accenture indicates that $1.5 trillion worth of value can be realized by 2025, just for the members of the logistics industry. At least $2.4 trillion in societal benefits are also anticipated during that time.

3D Printing

3D printing in industrial processes largely has been restricted to making prototypes. The process is replacing injection plastic molding. But more products will be produced by this technology, which will also become more efficient as time goes on.

Storage will still be needed even with mass 3D printing technology. 3D printers take time to produce their products. Ensuring enough are available in the supply chain will require the storage of items made.

Because 3D printing allows for the manufacture of items that traditional methods cannot make, storage innovation will also be at a premium. Storage containers and methods may have to change.

One other effect of 3D printing—and, indeed, many of these digital technologies—is the decentralization of storage needs for a nation- or world-wide company. Local facilities may be able to deliver items, perhaps by drone, more quickly than a centralized warehouse.

Big Data

Information is crucial in managing the supply chain, including all storage needs along the way. Big data is simply the idea that the overwhelming amount of information available to businesses about their operations can be analyzed for trends, patterns, insights, and other structures. The results of this analysis can support more strategic decisions.

Similar applications of information can be made for storage needs, especially for firms that move, store, and use many items throughout the year. Bottlenecks can be anticipated and shortfalls covered.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is the integration of digital graphics or output into the real world. One popular example was the Pokémon Go craze of 2016.

In industry, augmented reality allows instant access and use of information of projected images. The use of the images is recognized by the technology and processed within the chain.

Augmented reality can be used to plan new warehouses. Since warehouses are no longer simply storage facilities but support other operations including repair, labeling, and assembly, the ability to envision, in full scale, a rearrangement will lead to more effective operations.

The Industrial Internet of Things

It’s becoming common to hear about the Internet of Things. This “internet” is simply the connection of many components of daily living to the internet. The decreasing cost of access has helped drive this connectivity.

Consumers can connect many goods to the internet and manage them from their smart devices. Full and effective verbal integration is on the horizon. By 2020, estimates of the number of connected devices range from 26 billion to over 100 billion.

The industrial Internet of Things allows for significantly more efficient operations. For example, radio-frequency identification connected with warehouse containers and pallets to calculate, by weight, the parts on hand. This ability to track and inventory allows automatic reordering when supplies run low.

By Cory Levins
Director of Business Development
Air Sea Containers