What Is a Smart Inventory Management System and How Is It Different from Ordinary Solution?
Successfully coordinating various operations and making informed decisions is vital for any company working in the retail, e-commerce, supply chain, or logistics industry. Inaccurate stock data, limited visibility into processes, and other errors or incorrectness in tasks may lead to struggles and failure. When your inventory grows, the amount of problems grows as well. And, it may increase incrementally, if you won’t do anything about it. If you are afraid to encounter the consequences or you have already ran into some troubles while trying to manage inventory, you may find smart inventory management systems useful in your case.
The main goal of any inventory management system is to help your business with the processes and monitoring of the storage and stock of products. When it is implemented wisely and has all the needed features that aid your particular situation, it doesn’t affect your profit margins in a negative way. That is why many organizations use smart custom software solutions. In this article, we will dive deeply into the details and show you why these systems are so helpful.
System Overview and Its Peculiar Features
In general, inventory management is the process of checking your products at every stage and ensuring that its amount, quality, and availability is acceptable. It means that both you and your customers should be able to get a product at any time or at least know that, when it’s out of stock, this info is updated on your company’s site as well. Wise management of the inventory also helps businesses to understand how much of a product should be produced.
If your company uses an inventory management system, it may already have some features that offer the automation of procedures or even hyperautomation. But, smart inventory management systems bring the usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to a completely another level. Such software is powered by various advanced technologies, including smart shelves, Li-Fi technology, autonomous inventory robots, RFID tracking, barcodes, and more. It shows real-time inventory information 24/7, prevents stockouts, and saves time on manual stocktakes. All the data, analysis, and history of purchases, sales, specifications, and shipments are gathered in one place, and it’s easier and faster to get access to this information. It means that you always have 360-degree visibility of the warehouse and can greatly minimize human intervention.
This type of software has various features that bring benefits to a business. Therefore, let’s take a more detailed look at them. Some of the distinctive features include the following:
- Synchronized orders and management across multiple locations;
- Easy classification of item categories;
- Automated addition of items to the warehouse inventory;
- Accurate tracking and balanced stock;
- Faster data updates and order cancellation;
- Notifications about inventory levels;
- Instant record and automated data backup;
- Better security and IoT.
Source: Logistics and Supply Chain Management Application
As you can see, smart solutions for inventory management have a vast variety of options that can be implemented when your company opts for custom software development solutions.
Benefits of Choosing Smart Version
The future is already here, and it’s impossible to deny that the usage of smart devices and technologies is no longer a fiction. The life cycle of a product doesn’t stop at the point when one comes up with an idea. Knowing which advertising and pricing strategies to involve is also a part of success. Having a full stock of products is inevitable for a good outcome of all the processes. But, what about the part when a smart inventory management solution brings fruitful benefits to the table? Which advantages does it offer? Let’s find out.
Automation and Real-Time Monitoring
Every task that required manual interaction earlier doesn’t require any intervention when you have smart warehouse inventory. Replenishment of items, tracking, restocking, database updates – everything is automated and can be checked at any time. Thus, your business spends less time on procedures and is able to overview analytics gathered by the system to be able to make better and more productive decisions.
Detection and elimination of supply chain disruption patterns
Any disruption in supply chain management processes detected by the system are immediately analyzed and reported. As a result, it becomes a lot simpler to identify bottlenecks, adjust stocking procedures, and avoid their occurrence in the future.
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Ability to Satisfy Higher Customer Expectations
With automated tasks and the possibility to complete them faster and with fewer issues, your company has more chances to satisfy customer requests with higher expectations and more difficult approaches. It means that you will be able to increase your clientele and ensure that the current target audience isn’t leaving you for one of your rivals.
Control of Costs
When you have a clear understanding of the inventory stock and the status of every item, it is more realistic to control the costs. More interesting deals and bundles can be offered to customers to get their attention to your services, and you have a better vision of the further actions that require money and resources. You may even find some other business opportunities to invest in.
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4 Key Factors That Improve Quality of Your Custom Smart Inventory Management Software
Custom software solutions tend to bring more useful features in comparison to off-the shelf solutions, because an outsourcing company is able to comply with the requirements and needs you have in mind. With a custom smart application suitable for your goals, it is possible for your business to follow the path you’ve chosen.
It all depends on your request, but there are certain criteria that shows the quality of an app and ensures that it will do its part of the job. All in all, you shouldn’t worry if the final version of your system doesn’t deny the following factors:
- Customization
If the system was customized to fit your needs and the relevant features are ticked, it will serve its role. Custom-made layout, dashboards, schedules, and other elements can be a game-changer, because it becomes easier to develop a unique system that can support your business. Thus, for example, Webix Javascript UI library makes the development process faster and brings useful features.
- Flexibility
Your truck drivers should be able to access the system remotely, and your clients have to be able to check the stock of items anytime from any device. Otherwise, the delivery may be postponed or your employee will fail to do their task because of the inability to get the real-time information.
- Integration with third-party tools
Sometimes, a business needs to bring all operations into a single place, and integration with third-party modules may be relevant in your case as well. An ERP system may involve the usage of inventory management, or the latter can require interaction with other applications of your company. In this case, a custom solution can be of great help.
- Better Security
A smart application should be able to ensure security of all data it contains. That is why it is important to test all processes and implement a backup feature to retrieve data when disaster happens.
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Conclusions
It is important for any business to succeed in the projects and processes the company follows, which is why it is not a surprise to want an inventory management system that will be smart enough to operate on its own. The good news is our modern technology world has all the resources for this to happen. So, why not choose a smart option over a legacy one?
If you have any questions about our services or want to have a dedicated team of developers that will meet the requirements of your software, contact us, and we will be glad to assist you.
