Retailers lose $45B worth of inventory every year due to misplaced packages, stolen merchandise, and returned goods. In 2013, Walmart lost up to $3B due to discrepancies between inventory records and actual stock, according to Forbes. Now drone-based package-tracking tech could finally help solve this problem. Read: Walmart Testing Warehouse Drones to Catalog and Manage Inventory New research from MIT proposes lightweight drones that can help track and manage inventory in large-scale environments by allowing passive, long-range radio frequency identification (RFID) scanning. RFID tags have long provided a potential solution to the problem of effective package tracking through digital cataloging.…
Körber Acquires Supply Chain Software Specialists HighJump The acquisition has been completed with effect from August 28, 2017, after receiving approval from the relevant antitrust authorities. HighJump specializes in the development of software solutions for supply chain management (SCM). The company is headquartered in Minneapolis, USA. HighJump has additional operations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and China. HighJump serves over 4,000 customers across the retail, consumer products, automotive, aerospace, pharmaceutical, and food/beverage industries. HighJump has developed a cloud-ready underlying technology platform called the “HighJump One Platform” which is consistently recognized for being one of the industry’s most flexible and…
Pack Expo Las Vegas and co-located Healthcare Packaging EXPO (Las Vegas Convention Center, Sept. 25–27) are expected to be the largest and most diverse ever according to show producer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. Pre-show projections reveal a collection of 30,000 attendees, including 5,000 international visitors from more than 125 countries, and 2,000-plus exhibiting companies spanning nearly 900,000 net-square-feet of an almost sold-out exhibition floor. Pack Expo Las Vegas will bring together top CPGs from around the world to explore state-of-the-art packaging technologies, equipment and materials as well as exchange ideas with peers and build professional relationships.…
A recent technology survey by ABI Research of management-level decision makers at manufacturing companies revealed that the adoption of collaborative robots among manufacturers is strong and ongoing. A full 13% of the companies surveyed have collaborative systems currently in operation, a significant percentage especially given that commercial class systems only became readily available beginning in 2014. Another 15% indicated that they expect to have collaborative robots at work within the next 12 months. Manufacturing firms with more than 250 employees were much more likely to have collaborative systems in operation or have that intention in the near term. “Although industrial…
