With Ublique’s Warehouse and Workforce solutions, we have improved and accelerated the flow planning of a 41,000-m2 warehouse of a well-known fashion clothing and accessories company.
Ublique is Spindox’s decision-making platform that implements statistical tools and applied artificial intelligence to simulate, forecast, and optimize processes.
As part of the Warehouse Control Tower project, created for one of the most prestigious Italian brands in the fashion industry, some of the solutions in the Ublique suite have been customized based on the customer’s needs and have become the key to the radical optimization of the warehouse.
Solution
The Warehouse Control Tower is an optimization system created specifically to address customer needs. In particular, the system uses two solutions that are now part of the Ublique platform: Warehouse and Workforce.
The control unit has optimized and rendered the following three processes more efficient:
1. Planning and real-time dispatching
The resource planning and scheduling functionality allows the user to receive requests, “park” them by creating an efficient and effective queue, and then correctly assign them to the various resources. In other words, the user who manages the warehouse and plans its activities is provided with a software tool that enables him to change the priorities of the activities and schedule them in a manner that avoids bottlenecks, stops, and delays between warehouse inputs and outputs, ensuring a warehouse flow that is always fluid.
2. Scheduling (scheduling work production)
In addition to logistics, our platform also performs work scheduling with the goal of increasing efficiency and profits. When we talk about production, we imply the warehouse activity (besides the handling and packaging of the goods) that include the fine-tuning of garments or repair of defects. As a basis for the work performed at the warehouse of our client company, we maintain an extraordinarily high quality control. This is also applicable to the image recognition project using artificial intelligence algorithms, developed for the same client.
With regards to scheduling, with the abovementioned solution, it is possible to schedule the shifts and manual activities of the workers and plan the activities of the equipment. In this way, a workload optimization process is set considering the constraints defined by the client as well as the management of any failures or unplanned events.
The evolution of this project is described in an article on the transformation of Ublique from an operational tool to a predictive planning tool. Through the platform’s Demand Intelligence solution, it is possible to predict the incoming stock flow and enable the scheduling for a longer period of time.
Adavantages
o Very high level of detail: Ublique scheduling has a very high level of detail because it is based on a simulation that digitally mirrors the warehouse in 3D. With this technique, the user can view the actual movements of the products, both with simplified and ultra-detailed modeling.
o Real-time scheduling: the scheduling is not static, but dynamic. The scheduling of activities is performed three times an hour to “readjust” to the real data that are transmitted from the warehouse.
o Uniformity: the system provides instructions to the warehouse workers as well as equipment, guaranteeing operations alignment and that constraints are applied according to corporate guidelines.
o Efficiency: our scheduling ensures the efficient use of time and material.
o Customizable solutions: optimization models can be added to this solution according to specific business needs.
o The software is available both in a desktop version and in a web version.
