From fruit juices to tools, everything moves through a supply chain. Supply chains are aspect of many industries. Due to the inflated cost of transportation, companies are now curious about the potential of augmented reality. It might sound goofy to think of customers wearing headsets in the stories, but the information available, like product ratings and reviews created by real consumers, would be valuable to any shopper, and price comparison. Sure, you could research at home or flip through your phone, but with augmented reality, information could be brought up instantly to help you make a better purchase decision.
How augmented reality transforms supply chains:
1) Plan your warehouse better with augmented reality.
In today’s digital world, the warehouse is not just limited to distributing and storing merchandise. Companies are using warehouses for an array of services, such as repacking, repair, product labeling and assembly. Using augmented reality, companies can visualize layout adjustments in real time and plan adjustments. Companies can also propose future modifications. This enables optimized warehouse planning, which reduces the burden on the supply chain industries. The optimization of the warehouse in real time reduces cost, which otherwise, would go waste in designing and redesigning the warehouse again and again.
2) Augmented reality enhances maintenance.
Anticipating and detecting problems before they become a significant issue is the best way to maintain the supply chain. In the aircraft industry, augmented reality is assisting the ground engineers to curb down the engine downtime. Also, engineers can collect past data of similar air crafts, which helps them anticipate potential problems which may occur. Furthermore, augmented reality enables maintenance teams to deal correctly with potential problems.
3) Augmented reality optimizes pick and pack services.
Warehouses across the globe prefer sticking to the pick-by-paper approach, which tends to be extremely slow and prone to errors. Augmented reality is helping warehouses to efficiently locate products and pack them according to the shipping requirement. Using augmented reality glasses, you can create an entire warehouse line to be visualized by trainees. This hands-on approach can help simplify and speed up searching for items and training. Furthermore, AR is likely to reduce packing errors by 40%. Augmented reality technology provides a graphic representation of the packages on the shelves, which will help reduce the time needed to find the products on the assembly line.
In the coming years, augmented reality is likely to become the future of supply chains. Using augmented reality, employees working on supply chains can easily have access to crucial information such as content, weight, handling instruction and delivery time. This technology, without doubt, is changing the realm of the supply chain for good.
