One of the big days of the year at a manufacturing company where I worked was Physical Inventory Day. Almost 10 years of my career involved physical inventory—either supervising part of it or figuring out why we always had such shrinkage. Counting was a royal pain in the behind. Perhaps automation could have helped.
- New, true inventory counting service is an add-on to AIMS’ autonomous drone service.
- Enables warehouses to automate inventory counting with higher accuracy and increased efficiency than manual counting.
- AIMS boosts worker safety, productivity and reassignment from cycle counting to higher-value tasks.
Nokia announced August 5 the launch of the industry-first, true inventory counting capability for Nokia Autonomous Inventory Monitoring Service (AIMS), enabling warehouse operators to utilize autonomous drones to individually count items, such as eaches, cases or cartons, in any racked inventory location accurately and efficiently.
I have no real idea what Nokia means by “true.” It’s probably just a marketing word meaning something like “we count everything.”
Warehouse shrinkage can account for 3-5% of a company’s revenue and 25% of shrinkage is due to administrative errors. This combined with continued pressure to fulfill orders rapidly has pushed warehouse operators to a tipping point of futureproofing and automating operations to gain a business edge.
Top management awarded the task of the accuracy of the bills of material to me for several years. They figured that engineering must have missed something big in the BOM causing accounting to deduct a smaller amount of inventory for each product shipped. I walked through production areas, sent my team out to audit, walked through production with the production managers. All to no avail. I suspected the system from procurement through accounting. I still wonder about the problem 40 years later.
The new inventory counting capability adds to Nokia AIMS’ current features of finding misplaced and lost inventory, as well as empty bin detection. If a human worker can count inventory from the aisle, the Nokia AIMS drone can count it too. Identified inventory counts are then compared with warehouses’ existing WMS or ERP systems to identify any quantity mismatches.
One other problem for me was something almost untestable given the size of the problem—the inventory counters simply missed something or misidentified it. By the way, I find the statement about “if the human worker…then we can” not convincing. Why then invest in a solution that does the same thing?
Whereas typical cycle counts use the ABC method, where inventory is counted based on varying frequency, Nokia AIMS efficiently checks every location much more frequently, to ensure customers get a more accurate, reliable and complete picture of their inventory.
Of course, if the size of the facility is very large relative to the number of people able to count, then an automated system that you can trust becomes an excellent investment.
Nokia AIMS is delivered as a service in a complete solution comprising of drones, software and a cloud-based user interface. A Nokia AIMS drone can complete cycle counts approximately 7-10 times faster than human workers or around 300 inventory locations per hour. AIMS can provide customers with a 40% or greater ROI and deliver immediate value on the day it is launched.
Inventory counting capability is now available to customers in the United States. Existing Nokia AIMS customers will automatically gain access to this capability via a software update with no additional costs. New Nokia AIMS customers who sign up in 2024 will receive this capability for free, for one year.
About the company
Spun out from Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia AIMS reflects the deep heritage of utilizing emerging technology, such as AI and automation, to develop revolutionary technology advancements that are human by design and answer the industry’s biggest demands.
