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Menu * Platform * Customers * About Us * Blog * Schedule a Demo * White Papers * LoadProof * Careers * LMS Login * Customers * Testimonials * Blog * Best Practices * Careers * Careers USA * Careers India Type and press enter to search * Platform * Customers * Testimonials * About Us * Blog * Best Practices * Schedule a Demo * White Papers * LoadProof * Careers * Careers USA * Careers India * LMS Login With Smart Gladiator Wearable Scan Guns - Our Client has increased their Cycle Count rate from 300 to 550 locations per day. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We can do the same for your Picking, Receiving, Sorting, Loading and any other function in your Distribution Center. # of Scans $$$ Saved THE GLOBAL LEADER IN WEARABLE SCANNING TECHNOLOGY FOR SUPPLY CHAIN. Schedule a live demo BLOCKCHAIN READY > Hands-free and Eyes-free Voice-picking system for Operators. Learn more Veteran Operators Love Smart Gladiator for the Light Weight because it is easier on their arms, also for the bigger font because it is easier on their eyes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Millennial Operators Love Smart Gladiator because that is the technology they grew up with. Watch Product Video Tablets Mounted on Vehicles - Fork Lifts, Stock Pickers, Turret Trucks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Both inside the DC and Outside in the Yard. Learn more VIDEO TESTIMONIES FROM OUR CUSTOMERS. Schedule a Demo Now EXPECTED ROI & GAINS 10-25% HANDHELD TO WEARABLE 2-4% SOFT OVERLAY KEYBOARD 5-8% MINI LABOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 10-25% VOICE PICKING TECHNOLOGY OUR AWARDS & RECOGNITION SupplyChainBrain’s Great Supply Chain Partner. Featured in Leading Manufacturing Industry Magazine – IndustryWeek Finalist at CSCMP Supply Chain Innovator Awards. Featured at Venture Atlanta – Southeast’s Premier Technology Event. Game Changing Startup by GT Alumni – Recognized by Georgia Tech. Top 40 Innovative Companies in Georgia for Technology Innovation. WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN THE DISTRIBUTION CENTER? Mouse click on the picture to see benefits I AM A DC SUPERVISOR or DC MANAGER or THE GENERAL MANAGER OF THE DC. I AM A VP OF DISTRIBUTION or SVP OF SUPPLY CHAIN or VP OF IT. Soft over lay keyboard - program at the function level Voice picking Wearables for operators tablets for supervisors text & facetime communication Gamification - Real Time Feedback On Operator Performance Save on Your Supply Chain Chargebacks & Freight Claims add pictures to your work flow Supported in both apple & android Onboard temp workers fast with programmable macro keys CLIENTS PARTNERS HEAR WHAT WAREHOUSE OPERATORS SAY ABOUT SMART GLADIATOR DEVICES ABOUT US Puga Sankara Gopinath Kesavalu TESTIMONIALS * Dave Schaeffer,SVP Fulfillment Simon & Schuster We just recently added several of Smart Gladiator Wearable & Tablet devices to our operation and we are extremely satisfied with these units. They connect & respond much faster than our “traditional RF devices”. The screens are larger, more user friendly. Its rare that our warehouse workers compliment new equipment: I’ve had several people come up to me & say how much better these wearable units are than our “traditional devices. Our only regret is that last year we upgraded many of our RF devices & with new traditional devices at considerably more cost than these units. Beyond the equipment the team is very responsive & great to work with. Dave Schaeffer,SVP Fulfillment Simon & Schuster * Nihad Aytaman,VP of IT Elie Tahari We are using Smart Gladiator mobile terminal/scanners in our warehouse for stock cutaway, picking, relocating etc. With our WM system Smart Gladiator wearable devices do provide value in a warehouse environment. Nihad Aytaman,VP of IT Elie Tahari * Trevor Jarvi,Operations Supervisor * Very simple to pull an alpha screen and type in User name, password * Much simpler steps to enter data * Good advantage by having the blue tooth scanner, work freely with both hands, you are very independent and very mobile * Very durable piece of equipment, we have dropped a few of them there has been no damage they work perfectly after that. Trevor Jarvi,Operations Supervisor WHITE PAPERS Smart Gladiator white papers Lowering Total Cost of Ownership on Rugged Wearables Smart Gladiator white papers Mobile Initiatives for Warehousing & Distribution Executives Smart Gladiator white papers Cost Savings White Paper THOUGHT LEADERSHIP TOP 10 BEST PRACTICES THAT YOU CAN IMPLEMENT IN YOUR DISTRIBUTION CENTER TOMORROW WITH NO SYSTEM CHANGES AND VERY LITTLE PROCESS CHANGES Implementing best practices in your warehouse is the key in increasing the throughput and productivity. They are listed below. 1. Assign Ownership of Aisles to Operators So They Keep their Aisles Clean with Pride Managing the operator’s aisle pristine and in an orderly way is necessary to increase the picking in the warehouse. When operators are happy and proud of the work they do – they do even better. To make them proud of the… Read more Read more SMART GLADIATOR WEARABLE FEATURED IN INDUSTRYWEEK MAGAZINE Innovation Lab Helps Small Manufacturers Grow Beginning as a start-up Smart Gladiator found an ecosystem in Georgia that helped these companies expand. Sometimes having an idea isn’t enough. Sometimes a small company needs a boost to bring its product to those that need it most. That’s what happened to Smart Gladiator LLC, a manufacturer of wearable scanning technology, based in Atlanta. Puga Sankara founded the company after he saw the need to improve the process… Read more Read more THE BEST PRACTICES IN AUTOMATING YOUR WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS If you are looking at little automation in your warehouse this is the best practice to lookout. If you are automating your warehouse in terms of conveyors or sorters or even robots it would make a lot of sense to mark your SKUs as conveyable or not conveyable, sortable or non-sortable and as the robots coming everywhere robotable or non-robotable. The last thing you want to do is make a small product or a big… Read more Read more THE ZONE PICKING BEST PRACTICE TO IMPROVE ORDER PICKING PRODUCTIVITY This next best practice is about the warehouse zone picking process. The way this works is if your picking involves going to multiple areas, multiple isles of bin locations, and you are picking from different bin locations. This process is about eliminating all the unnecessary walking, and of course we all know the more you pick, the more you can ship, the more you ship, the more you invoice, the more you can get paid…. Read more Read more THE WAREHOUSE YARD MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES TO INCREASE VISIBILITY This is a best practice that will be very useful if you have a lot of trucks, trailers and containers coming into your facility. This is called yard management, so basically this is a small system within the WMS with which you can track your truck’s trailers and containers. You can create yard locations and of course you can create dock doors and you can track them exactly. But it’s all about visibility right, I… Read more Read more THE WAREHOUSE VOICE PICKING BEST PRACTICE TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY This best practice is on warehouse voice picking. Instead of looking at the screen and looking at the device and typing in the characters and picking you would talk hands-free and eyes-free with voice-picking. This is what the voice picking is, but let’s take a step back and understand how this whole picking process is evolved. If you look at it, the very first picking process was all based on the paper pick takers. There… Read more Read more SMART GLADIATOR AT THE COMMON FALL CONFERENCE 2019 Watch Our Principal Speak at the Fall 2019 Conference held at Indianapolis on the Next Gen UI/UX & IoT extensions for IBM i Terminal Emulation. Read more THE BEST PRACTICES TO IMPLEMENT VENDOR COMPLIANCE IN YOUR WAREHOUSE This next best practice that you can implement in your distribution center is something called vendor performance. So vendor performance is basically you as a retailer or a distributor or as an ecommerce order fulfiller you are buying your product from different vendors. When the vendor ship to your DC, you can rate them on how well they are doing in terms of compliance. Compliance requirements are mandatory in all of the big ecom warehouses…. Read more Read more THE BEST PRACTICES TO OPTIMIZE SLOTTING PROCESS IN YOUR WAREHOUSE This next best practice is about optimizing your slotting process. It’s all about picking and especially it’s even more important in the e-commerce world, because you are picking one unit order and two unit orders. This is what the standard order profile is for the orders that people are placing from their computers at home through the web and through the mobile device. It’s all about picking from the active locations and piece pick locations…. Read more Read more THE RETURNS ASN BEST PRACTICE TO OPTIMIZE REVERSE LOGISTICS IN YOUR WAREHOUSE. This best practice is about Returns ASN (Advance Shipment Notice). We discussed about the ASN before and we articulated on how useful was the ASN in deployment scheduling and your were able to plan your work in the receiving area. You were also able to get upfront information as to what is going to hit your DC and you could even allocate inventory in terms of the location of the product and allocate inventory for… Read more Read more THE 3 BEST PRACTICES TO OPTIMIZE YOUR WAREHOUSE INVENTORY REPLENISHMENTS This best practice is about making replenishments inside the warehouse. It is important to stay on the top off replenishments always in your warehouse. If you have just one shift that you are running it would help a lot. If you spend extra hours in the evening and then do the topping off all your active locations it will be helpful for the pickers in the next shift. In the next morning when the pickers… Read more Read more THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LABOR COST PER UNIT IN YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN During one of my implementations, I was talking to this DC Director, this was a lady that had this amazing knack to formulate processes completely on the fly, that worked for their complicated manufacturing and distribution center, that was handling a lot of these eye glass prescriptions. The challenge with this operation was that their product was very small and also very fragile, which means it is pretty much a norm to break a lens… Read more Read more THE WAREHOUSE RATE SHOPPING BEST PRACTICE TO REDUCE SHIPPING CHARGES This best practice we are going to discuss is called as rate shopping. The rate shopping can be done for both parcel and the (Less than Load) LTL. I mean the parcels are the small boxes that they ship mostly as Ecom orders. Sometimes they also ship retail orders as parcels from the distribution center to the final destination. In Ecom orders it will be a consumer that’s buying product, they place an order on… Read more Read more THE DC QUALITY CONTROL BEST PRACTICES TO IMPROVE SHIPPING EFFICIENCY This is a best practice that you can refer to if you have a lot of quality issues in your distribution center. Let us assume that for some reason you opened up the box from reserve. You thought that everything was okay at the time of receiving. Then you put it away in reserve and for replenishment you moved the product from reserve to active location. After opening up the box you find that there… Read more Read more THE 3 BEST PRACTICES TO RUN EFFECTIVE WAREHOUSE MEETINGS This best practice is about running the warehouse meetings effectively. It’s basic and I learnt a great deal from consultants and doing consulting myself, the consultants gets billed at a high rate. For eg. I have been to sites where I got billed and the value we brought to the table as a team and it was always highly challenging. The complicated problems we solve for them and imagine one hour of my time is… Read more Read more THE SEQUENCING BEST PRACTICE TO BOOST WAREHOUSE ORDER PICKING EFFICIENCY This best practice is known as location sequencing. It means that when you are configuring your locations for picking purposes, replenishment, and for put-away purposes in the reserve area in the top level position. While doing this you would have picked the naming convention to streamline the picking. On top of it there is also the ability to configure something called as the location sequencing. It means that you do not want your pickers to… Read more Read more THE BEST PRACTICES IN MEASURING WAREHOUSE KPIS FOR ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY This best practice is about measuring and improving warehouse productivity through LMS, which stands for labor management system. There are typically two segments of customers that will benefit significantly from an LMS, one is this huge ERP – vendor who supplies WMS. For example we will take SAP. SAP’s core was ERP and they still developed and integrated the WMS because many of their customers have integration challenges with other platforms. They gave them the… Read more Read more BATTLING THE PORCH PIRATES Sad to say, the e-commerce sea is besieged by porch pirates…that are trying to make sure that the electronic gadgets, tools, and equipment that consumers order never make it to home port. I have been robbed by these rascals even here. We are located in a multi-tenant building and our shipments get lost and delayed. And we are not alone. Part of the mix is a new level of thieves dubbed porch pirates, who some… Read more Read more THE BEST PRACTICES IN DESIGNING UI/UX OF THE WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT APP This best practice is about the importance of UI (User Interface) in improving the distribution center productivity. In this day and age where Apple and Android have completely changed the user experience that is so easy to understand and use the app. Particularly in the distribution center the time is spent significantly on training the end users. I’ve seen many distribution centers that are literally revolving doors, where personnel come and go. All these personnel… Read more Read more THE 4 BEST PRACTICES IN DESIGNING A PERFECT GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER This best practice is called “implementing global design in the distribution center”. Let us say when you go to Walmart in Atlanta it looks one way and then let’s say you go to Walmart in Cincinnati, Ohio it looks completely different. It will be difficult fit for you to navigate to get even a simple cough syrup that you want to pick up. It will be much easier by the fact that if all the… Read more Read more 4 BEST PRACTICES IN THE INVENTORY MANAGEMENT THROUGH LPNS This best practice that you implement in your supply chain is to Keep Track of Stock Movements through LPN (License Plate Number). You can make it a rule in your in your DC (Distribution Center) that any product which may be just one unit or two units or three units whatever it is any product, group of products, any set of products that you’re moving always gets an LPN. LPN could be even called as… Read more Read more THE 5 BEST PRACTICES IN THE DIRECTED PUTAWAY TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY This warehouse best practice is called the directed putaway. Putaway is a process of moving the product after receiving at the receiving dock. The product gets received and either cases were built or the pallets were built and now these cases and pallets have to be put-away in their reserve location. The way it works is the product is moved from the receiving area to the reserve area in so many different ways. The user… Read more Read more TOP 4 BEST PRACTICES IN DIMENSIONING OF SKUS WITH BENEFITS This best practice is about something called dimensioning of SKU’s in warehouse. Dimensioning of products is done by capturing the length width and height of the products. Read more THE BEST PRACTICES IN CROSS-DOCKING WITH BENEFITS This distribution center best practice is called the cross-docking. Cross-docking is basically sending a product you are sending from one dock to another dock i.e. from the receiving dock to the outbound shipping dock directly without any intermediary processes. Cross-docking makes it so much efficient because you don’t have to send it to the reserve and then again from reserve to the active location and then pick from the active location. In the cross-docking process… Read more Read more RETURNING GOODS IN THE ERA OF EXPERIENTIAL RETAIL Back in the good old days (read the summer of 1999), I was introduced to a music and movie club from Columbia House or the BMG Music Service. You may remember the way it worked: They send you eight CDs of music or movies for a penny. Then they continue to send you titles, and you decide to keep them or send them back within 10 days. If you don’t send them back, your credit card… Read more Read more WHY YOU NEED CARTONIZATION IN YOUR FULFILLMENT CENTER? If you are looking to upgrade your WMS or if you’re getting a new WMS or switching to another WMS or if this is your first time WMS, here’s the another feature to consider. This feature is called cartonization. Cartonization is done among the different carton box sizes that you have for your order, whatever items that are being shipped in that order, you find the smallest box that will hold these items of the… Read more Read more THE BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPLEMENTING ADVANCED SHIPMENT NOTICE (ASN) We’re going to discuss another best practice that you can implement in your distribution center (DC). These practices need some more work to implement, like you have to design your systems, your process and so forth. This is not something that you can implement tomorrow or day after tomorrow, without process changes, systemic changes. But this is good to know because when you’re upgrading next time or when you’re implementing a brand new WMS for… Read more Read more 3PL PANACEA: THE FLEXIBLE MOBILE SUPPLY CHAIN PLATFORM The third-party logistics (3PL) business is tough, because it covers a wide gamut of service offerings, that include some combination of: Just move my boxes and/or pallets. Move my boxes and/or pallets and store them in your warehouse. Move my boxes and/or pallets and operate my facility. Own all the labor and activities in my facility. Offer all distribution services for my product (All I will do is download my orders into your system/supply chain)…. Read more Read more BEST PRACTICES IN WAREHOUSE DOCK DOOR APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING Another best practice that you can implement in your distributions center is something called appointment scheduling. So basically what this means is when the truck drivers are arriving to your DC or when when they’re about to come to your DC they call ahead through their transportation companies and say “hey please give me an appointment, and I’m going to be there at this time, this date”. Booking the appointment makes it easy to make… Read more Read more GETTING ENGAGED IN THE ERA OF EXPERIENTIAL RETAIL In April, I had a very busy week at the ProMat tradeshow in Chicago. The show, which originally billed itself as a materials handling equipment event, now has something for everyone involved in supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution. It offered a whole world of ideas on what’s happening in our industry. It was an interesting mix of offerings. About a third of the show involved robotics including associated components, control systems, gear mechanisms, motor actuators, and… Read more Read more 5 BEST PRACTICES IN OPTIMIZING THE SKU VELOCITY IN YOUR WAREHOUSE This post is about the best practices to track the velocity of your SKUs which is important to know as a DC manager and as a director of DC. As a supply chain inventory manager of your supply chain you got to know what are your A SKU’s, what are your B SKU’s, what are your C SKU’s. A SKUs are the fastest moving SKUs and the B SKUs are the moderately moving SKUs and… Read more Read more CHINESE SMART PHONES CAPTURE ANDROID MARKET The smart phone market has historically been a huge battlefield and nothing about that is changing. In fact, if anything, it’s getting more competitive. It would be fair to say that this may be the year that the Chinese officially lead the smart phone market pack. The market leaders have evolved rapidly. It can be argued that U.S. innovators conceived of the smart phone, while the Koreans (specifically Samsung) came up with leading Android-based devices…. Read more Read more THE ROBOTS HAVE ARRIVED: YOU’RE FIRED! That’s the fear, isn’t it? I think that this prediction is half right. The robots are coming, so brace yourself. Whether we like it or not, the robots are coming. However, I don’t think those robots are going to be taking over our jobs any time soon. We’re not looking at artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that have reached sophistication where robots can take over our world. I just don’t see that happening…. Read more Read more TRACKING AMERICA’S CANNABIS SUPPLY CHAIN CHALLENGES Canada has declared Cannabis or Marijuana a legal medicine. United States is following suit, however here in the US, it is being done state by state, Colorado has done that for quite some time, many states are following, for the latest states please google as it is changing every time you read this article. So naturally there are a lot of Cannabis vendors that are going to set up shop and start selling them…. Read more Read more SUPPLY CHAIN HUNGRY FOR LEGAL TOOL INNOVATION Technology changes quickly. Other fields, such as legal and finance, are comparatively slow to evolve. (A friend’s daughter recently told me she chose the finance discipline for that reason: to avoid having to constantly learn new technologies.) Changes do come though, especially as organizations move to keep up with financial reporting requirements. At the same time, technologist know that if you miss one technology way, it’s possible to catch the next one successfully. In 1999,… Read more Read more EXPECT ACCOUNTABILITY FROM SUPPLY CHAIN OPERATORS & PARTNERS This past summer was fabulous. My brother-in-law got married and so my family got to go to India and participate in a typical South Indian wedding ceremony end to end, including all the pre- and post-wedding rituals, pre- and post-wedding parties, gift giving and receiving, the astrology and horoscope-based ceremonies, the auspicious poojas, and other traditions that the elders insist must be done. My daughter was very excited. A lot of these traditions stem from… Read more Read more OWNERSHIP IS EVERYTHING: THE DATA INTEGROUS SYSTEM OF RECORD Our actions and decisions are only as good as the data we use to rule them. That being true, when designing complicated systems, ensure the integrity of the data set involved becomes enormously important. Obviously, the data that resides in a system should be accurate. However, it also needs to have integrity, which means consistent and not unnecessarily redundant. A good data set is invaluable. Done well, it puts all of the data elements in… Read more Read more 100 GREAT SUPPLY CHAIN PARTNERS OF 2018 A truly great supply chain partner is one who knows precisely which ingredients we need to make our operations successful — and those we can skip. Some partners can tell us, for instance, what technologies we need to deploy, when to implement and how to upgrade. Others can advise who to contract for manufacturing and transportation, where to source parts and raw materials — or how to dispose of tainted or defective goods. They can… Read more Read more CASE IN POINT: REAL INSIGHTS FROM AN IOT PILOT IN A DISTRIBUTION CENTER It’s one thing to rave about the benefits that IoT will deliver to a distribution center, but it’s another to get a look at how it really adds value and provides actionable insights. Let’s take a look at one experience I had recently. Recently, I was at a prospect site for a pilot demonstrating our technology. Typically, we show up at the client site Monday morning and get things up and running in an hour…. Read more Read more IOT-BASED LABOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS OFFER BIG BENEFITS You cannot manage what you cannot measure—so if you want to manage something you need to be able to measure it. The average distributor, then, can improve productivity by 7% just by implementing a system that measures labor and publishes a daily report on operator’s performance. It’s all about the psychology of it. When people know they are being measured, their attitude completely changes. They become more proactive. When they don’t have work, they ask… Read more Read more THE POWER OF MUSIC IN SUPPLY CHAIN Conventional wisdom dictates that a picture is worth a thousand words and stories are worth a thousand pictures. I believe that…and I use stories in my presentation regularly. Of course, picking the right story is critical to making the biggest impact. Sometimes, though, I have an audience that speaks a completely different language. How do you communicate to inspire then? I think the answer is music. My daughter has been singing since she was five,… Read more Read more IMAGE ENABLE YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN, BLOCKCHAIN ENABLE YOUR IMAGES Blockchain has great potential to solve problems and address supply chain problems. Personally, the area that excites me most is track and trace—especially when you consider the possibility of taking these capabilities to the next level. Let us take a step back and look at the current supply chain processes and their evolution. Packing slip, paper ASN Advance Shipment Notices (ASNs) are sent in advance to let the receiver know what products or deliveries are… Read more Read more CHINA REMINDS US WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT Recently, I travelled to china to meet with one of our vendors. As soon as I set foot in the country, I was impressed with a variety of things that I saw. The Shenzhen airport was big and modern. The familiar Starbucks logo and store were there—so familiar despite the strange surroundings. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen was a fishing village. Now, it is the third largest city in China, smaller only than Shanghai and Beijing…. Read more Read more EMBRACE ENTREPRENEURIAL THINKING I recently visited NASA’s Cape Canaveral Kennedy Space Center. It was a fun and educational trip, especially for my daughter. We spent a lot of time looking at the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit. It also brought back memories. During the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 in 2003, I was with a bunch of friends driving from Atlanta to Washington DC to attend another friend’s wedding. When we stopped for gas, we saw a video of… Read more Read more GRADUATES LOOK TO TECH DISRUPTORS FOR OPPORTUNITY In the summer months, the employment market is flooded with newly minted graduates. In an environment where there are more supply chain, logistics, and related jobs than there are qualified candidates, this can be an opportune season to attract talent. Today, pursing a job at a startup, particularly a high-tech, electronics startup is all the rage. First, let’s make sure we agree on what a startup is. A startup is a pre-company that was formed… Read more Read more THE SMILE OF THE END USER During my technology consulting career over a period of 20 years, I can say, I have been part of a few crazy projects. One of the project was this WMS deployment we did for this hardware distributor. If you look at what was happening globally at that time, it was early 2001, in the US we were coming out of the dot com bust, the interest rates had been lowered so much to get the… Read more Read more A GAME-CHANGING INNOVATIVE STARTUP: GEORGIA TECH’S ALUMNI MAGAZINE Ref.vol94_no1_low_res, pg.47 Smart Gladiator is always proud to be a part of Georgia Tech as it has its roots going deep with its Principal Mr. Puga Sankara an alumni of Georgia Tech’s School of Management Technology. The company is also proud to be nestled inside Georgia Tech’s ATDC and the support it offers in delivering the innovation to the supply chain community. Read more CONSUMERIZATION MAY PUT WEARABLES IN THE WAREHOUSE (Image Courtesy: Honeywell) For some supply chain and logistics functions, rugged wearable computers can be a real boon. At the same time, the cost of managing these devices can be daunting. Too often, rugged wearable computers cost 5x to 10x the cost of consumer electronic devices with one-third features. Are you looking to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) on these rugged devices? If yes, you are not alone. What is a rugged wearable… Read more Read more IS YOUR DISTRIBUTION CENTER AN INVITING PLACE FOR MILLENNIALS? I was talking to a distribution center manager recently and he shared a recent story of a strange and unique event in his 25-year career. He got a call from the mother of one of his temp hires questioning why the temp hire’s performance feedback was “not outstanding, instead it was just very good.” He had hired this kid recently for a team lead position As a worker, he was good, picked up the systems… Read more Read more DRONES IN DISTRIBUTION CENTERS: HAS THE TIME ARRIVED? While there are many companies working on drone deliveries, it might be relatively easier to deploy drones in the distribution centers and get some real return on investment (ROI). Although drone delivery seems very interesting, we are pretty far from that becoming a reality. Before delivery drones fill the skies, safety concerns need to be addressed. First, everyone needs to feel comfortable with the concept of an autonomous flying machine flying in the near vicinity…. Read more Read more DRONES IN DISTRIBUTION: COUNTING INVENTORY We can all imagine drones moving boxes in the distribution center. However, there are a couple of reasons that make it difficult to move boxes today. That being said, another scenario offers even a more compelling advantage: inventory control. Of course, a few technological hurdles need to be overcome for this idea to be really feasible. Today, the payload for a drone is limited. To increase the payload, the drones need more motors and propellers,… Read more Read more TAKING DISTRIBUTION OPERATIONS COMMUNICATION BEYOND EMAIL When email works, it’s effective, but when it fails it can be a big problem. At times, emerging social media capabilities may provide a more effective way of sharing information and collaborating in real time. Let’s take a small example: Have you ever held a meeting and everybody showed up except that one team member that was off sick without a back up? Maybe you had to postpone and send everyone away because key information… Read more Read more GOOGLE GLASS COULD CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT ESPECIALLY DISTRIBUTION CENTERS When I first saw Google glass, it took me back to 1995 and the release of the action film Terminator 2 – Judgment Day. A bunch of us sophomores got all excited about the movie and went to see it as a big group with much anticipation. The scene that got deeply engrained in my mind was the Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger entering the bar scene, starts scanning the objects around him to find an outfit that… Read more Read more APPLE WATCH: BUILD IT & THEY WILL COME… OR WILL THEY? The Apple Watch, one of the most anticipated and supposedly game-changing wearable’s in the tech industry, has arrived and, obviously, it has not met Apple’s sales expectations. In fact, that may be why Apple has not released the initial sales figures. The market is still trying to decide: Is this product a winner or a loser? My verdict: It is not a winner yet—and it may never be unless it proves it’s value. However, it… Read more Read more TOP 5 SUPPLY CHAIN HEADACHES CREATED BY RETAIL I still remember the very first time I saw this thing called the Internet. It was July 1997 and I got an after-hours glimpse at the German multinational company where I worked. To the music of a vacuum cleaner wielded by cleaning staff, I clicked on the new-fangled Netscape Browser, typed a request into something called altavista.com and saw my first website: Mercedes Benz. My dream was to buy a Mercedes Benz E220D someday—and I wanted to… Read more Read more OMNICHANNEL RETAIL STRESSES DEMAND NEW TOOLS Delivering an omnichannel experience to customers has become newest Holy Grail for retailers. At the same time, trying to use old tools and processes to meet these new service level demands creates nothing but headaches. Omnichannel refers to the standard of offering a seamless brand experience to the consumer across all channels: retail store, Internet, and mobile device. The new standard takes “the customer is always right” to the next level, saying that consumers should… Read more Read more HOW ANNE HATHAWAY DRIVES DISTRIBUTION CENTER OPERATORS CRAZY If Anne Hathaway (or fill in the blank with your favorite star) were hosting a party, I can imagine that she’s want to create a magical evening for the guests, perhaps even sending them home with a special memento of the evening: something elegant, luxurious, personal, and lasting. This doesn’t sound like an unreasonable expectation from a VIP shopper’s perspective but are the retailers and the distributors fully equipped to handle such an order? You… Read more Read more TECH INDUSTRY NEEDS TO CALL FOR MULTICULTURAL LEADERS It is time to call out the elephant in the room: in the technology space in the U.S., there is a serious lack of multicultural leadership. When I say leadership, I’m referring to the ability of techies (read programmers or developers) to inspire a multicultural organization, and to be the torchbearer who shines a light on the un-trodden path. Really, there are only a handful. To get to the heart of the problem, it’s important… Read more Read more DEFINING LEADERSHIP FOR THE TECH INDUSTRY When we talk about leadership in the technology sector, it’s critical to start with a shared understanding of what leadership really is. There are plenty of misconceptions about what leadership is. Let’s start with looking at what leadership isn’t. True leaders are not: Dominating. Leaders don’t talk in loud voices with intent to suppress others. Controlling. Leaders don’t feel the need to control everything and influence others through that control. Colluding and manipulating. Leaders don’t… Read more Read more IBM OFFERS APPLE MACBOOKS TO ITS EMPLOYEES When I came to the U.S. back in 1999, I got some ribbing about the “green screen” technology I was working on from others who, like me, had envisioned coming to America to work on cool, modern technologies (such as Java, HTML, JavaScript, etc.). I had taken the opening I got, working on the IBM AS400, the iSeries technology. While it is a green screen technology, it was and still is amazingly stable, steadfastly reliable…. Read more Read more VIRTUAL REALITY: EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF THE OCULUS RIFT Source: Oculus Back in 1995, when I went to see a movie called Disclosure, the story line about sexual harassment in corporate America was OK, but what really fascinated us was this thing called virtual reality. In the movie, the virtual world was used to store confidential information in a system of files and folders within the computers. Who wouldn’t be riveted by a seemingly real virtual world created by computers. Today, the Oculus rift is creating a… Read more Read more MOBILE TECH EXTENDS THE LIFE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS Fifteen years ago, after I had joined a supply chain vendor as a developer, I encountered a product called J walk (a unit-testing tool for the Java programming language). After a week of training with the software, I was given a funny little dongle that had to be plugged in the back of the PC to activate the software. The ultimate goal was to create a good-looking user interface (UI) that would enhance the user… Read more Read more FINDING THE VALUE OF MOBILITY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN As a participant in the recent Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Supply Chain & Mobility Panel, we talked about the benefits of deploying mobile capabilities in the supply chain. The audience was comprised of Atlanta-based supply chain practitioners. I was invited to share my perspective from a data collection, collaboration, order fulfillment perspective in the distribution center, as well as from the back of the store omnichannel perspective. The audience had questions: What are the benefits?… Read more Read more LEVERAGE GAMIFICATION IN YOUR WAREHOUSE TO IMPROVE WORKER ENGAGEMENT One of my customers, a bulk picking department manager, asked an intriguing question the other day: How can I keep my employees motivated and working hard? His organization had deployed our wearable devices a year or so ago, and I had called on him to check in and see how they were being used and how much savings they had achieved. He’d had much success, and we had helped this customer come a long way… Read more Read more FOSTER A CULTURE OF INNOVATION IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN (Source: Pixabay) “Culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, anytime.” This was the first sentence that the professor of marketing and strategy uttered during our first MBA class at Georgia Tech. He underlined his point with the story of how Kellogg’s tried to conquer the Indian market with its breakfast cereal. The company was trying to sell corn flakes with cold milk as breakfast in the Indian market, a culture that eats a warm… Read more Read more OPERATIONS OR IT: DON’T PICK A SIDE Recently, I was telling a colleague about how we helped a retailer with a week-long pilot project with our distribution center technology. The results were exciting. Day one, productivity shot up 8%, which translated into labor savings that any operations executive would love. It shone a light, though, on a very real tussle that occurs in many organizations: the distribution center executive loved the productivity gain and the new technology, but the IT team didn’t… Read more Read more TRACKING THE EVOLUTION OF DISTRIBUTION CENTER TECH In the distribution center (DC), technology has taken over many manually intensive, paper-based processes. That progression is fascinating. Technology is being leveraged to create superior processes and connect workers seamlessly throughout the distribution center. Early in 2000, I visited a Detroit-area DC that based its efficiency on highly disciplined paper-based processes, ruled by the iron fist of the DC manager. This tough woman had more than 30 years of experience in the organization, which had… Read more Read more TELL APPLE TO STOP DRINKING ITS OWN KOOL AID: THE PC ISN’T DEAD YET “I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?” Apple CEO Tim Cook recent queried a Telegraph reporter. It’s a great sound point, but there’s at least one big reason that the iPad Pro won’t be replacing enterprise PCs anytime soon. In the startup world, it’s called drinking your own Kool-Aid when entrepreneurs, particularly product creators, get too excited about their own products. When that happens,… Read more Read more IPAD PRO NOT READY FOR SUPPLY CHAIN PRIME TIME Source: Apple When Apple introduced the iPad Pro, I was intrigued by the technology, and I could clearly see opportunity for the device in the supply chain. Unfortunately, a handful of limitations remain that will hold adoption back and keep organizations with tried and true PCs instead. Lack of browser compatibility Enterprises cannot get rid of the PC easily even if they want to. The reality is that many enterprise applications, especially browser-based apps, are coded… Read more Read more CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE PROVES CRITICAL TO GLOBAL STRATEGY To be effective globally, organizations need to foster cultural intelligence, especially in senior management. A couple of weeks ago, I met with the chief operating officer of a leading contract manufacturer with $18 billion annual revenue. He was interested in our technology, and I know he has a reputation for being influential within his organization. I was curious to understand him and how he had gotten to where he is. I found that he attributed… Read more Read more 8 WAYS THE CHENNAI FLOODS DEMONSTRATED THE (GOOD & BAD) POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA Source: Wikapedia Last month, Chennai, the coastal capital of Southern State Tamil Nadu often called the Detroit of South India, was battered by record-breaking rains that exceeded normal levels by three times and broke a record that had held for more than a century. The torrential downpour submerged the city, brought transportation of all types to a screeching halt, and left many homeless. The deluge was particularly bad news for many multinational automakers since the city is… Read more Read more LEVERAGE VIDEO TO ENGAGE & TEACH NEW TECHNOLOGY Every organization has a variety of systems aimed at streamlining processes and getting things done. Unfortunately, the plethora of technologies and software can confuse the average employee, especially if it’s a system skillset that only gets used sporadically. Video, however, can present key reminders and steps quickly to get workers the information they need to be productive. My daughter and I often try cooking new recipes in our kitchen. We find that YouTube is the best… Read more Read more SIMULATION TOOLS OPTIMIZE PROCESSES & TAKE SURPRISES OUT OF WMS DEPLOYMENTS I learned a few things when I spent one winter in a distribution center in Canada. I learned what it was like to arrive for work in the dark and leave in the dark. I learned about the extra connector in Canadian cars that would allow the car to be plugged in to heat the engine block so the car would still start in sub-zero weather. I learned about how these winter warriors would get… Read more Read more THE EBB & FLOW OF RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN: IS AI THE ANSWER? This month puts us well past the holiday season, with its tradition of frenzied holiday shopping. For those, the shopping tradition and the weeks after provide an opportunity for bragging rights about the savings I achieved in my holiday bargain hunting starting at Thanksgiving. At the same time, it marks a good time for electronics retailers to start getting ready for the next big shopping surge. I think nostalgically of my first experience with holiday… Read more Read more LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF AMAZON: LEARN THE LESSONS Photo courtesy: Amazon Amazon is the elephant in the room where any supply chain conversation is happening. Everyone is chasing that Amazon effect. Everyone is trying to figure out how to deliver on the expectations of customers that Amazon and its business models have created. Retrofitting Amazon’s strategies or tactics for another business is tough. In terms of order volume and order profile, Amazon is its own kind of beast. At the same time, it makes… Read more Read more INDUSTRY PUNDITS LOOK AT DIGITAL DISRUPTION We live in a digital world…and it’s only going to get more digital. With that reality in mind, I’ve wanted to dig deeper into the topic, particularly as it relates to the high-tech industry. That’s why I was excited to see an invite from my alma mater, Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, to attend a Digital Disruption panel moderated by Maryam Alavi, dean of the school. The participants were: David Godsman, chief digital officer,… Read more Read more WEIGHING BUILD VERSUS BUY WITH SUPPLY CHAIN APPS Today, IT technology may be one of the biggest enablers of supply chain efficiency. Organizations, then, are aware that finding or creating the right capabilities is central to business success. When enterprises buy complicated IT infrastructure, whether it is hardware, software, systems or anything else associated with such infrastructure, they are faced with a major decision: whether to buy this thing from a vendor or build it themselves. It is important to make the correct… Read more Read more AUTOMATION SMOOTHS OUT SEASONAL PEAKS & VALLEYS It’s surprising but huge warehouses with several sophisticated systems are not immune from sending their warehouse operators home in the middle of the day due of lack of work. Planning is especially hard in peak holiday seasons. Often, it seems warehouse managers have no effective tools to accurately forecast labor demands based on outstanding orders waiting fulfillment. If you take a step back to see the historical evolution of the labor management systems, it all… Read more Read more THREAT OF ROBOT WAREHOUSE INVASION OVERBLOWN In 2012, Amazon acquired Kiva Robots to use in the warehouse. During a couple of recent trade shows and conferences, I heard some intriguing presentations on how robots taking over warehouse worker jobs. By many accounts, venture capitalists are flocking to fund these companies. Naturally, I wanted to get a reality check from real end users and decision makers. I wanted to know, if they had decided to move to robotics, about the return on… Read more Read more THE POWER OF AMAZON PRIME: CHANGING PEOPLE’S HABITS CHANGES THE GAME I recently visited a major speaker manufacturer with cutting edge technology. The layout of the facility demonstrated clearly how much the company cares about its products. The main reception area had a demo area and my host demonstrated just how loud he could make the music without jeopardizing the quality of the sound. This company was passionate about sound technology. It got me thinking about what the layout of a distribution center might say about… Read more Read more VOICE EVOLVES THE EFFICIENCY OF THE WAREHOUSE The first time I was confronted with the idea of voice picking, I was intrigued. This was quite a long time ago, but when I saw the design spec I sat down with the consultant who was designing the system to learn more. I asked him, “Why the heck would a user want to talk to the computer.” His response: “Because functions executed using voice are much more efficient.” Clearly, technology evolves, and that’s a… Read more Read more VOICE PICKING AND AR AS A WAREHOUSE DATA COLLECTION TECHNOLOGY In the warehouse, excellent data collection processes are critical to accurate inventory counts in real time. By knowing what’s in the warehouse, organizations can fulfil orders quickly, avoid shortages, reduce misspeaks, and deliver the highest levels of customer service. In the beginning, pen and paper was the only method for data collection. Distribution center (DC) managers created processes, trained personnel, and handed them pads of paper to collect warehouse data. Most of the picking was… Read more Read more 6 BEST PRACTICES FOR ORDER PICKING IN DISTRIBUTION Getting products into hands of the customer quickly and efficiently is quickly moving from a differentiation to table stakes. As expectation of buyers increase, distribution centers must look for new ways to get things done correctly and efficiently. Consider these realities: Often, the picking process is the most time-consuming process off all, making it a potential bottleneck. More orders picked translate to more orders shipped. That leads to quicker invoicing and increased revenues. Picking also directly… Read more Read more RACING TO WORK: HYPER-COMPETITION DEMANDS PASSION & ATTITUDE Sometimes, a regular day sticks in your memory. I still remember one typical Monday. I woke up at 3:00 AM, packed a week’s worth of clothes, kissed my wife and child, and got on the road to go to the airport. On the freeway, I saw a guy on a motorcycle, who took off with a sudden burst from the streetlight. He was faster than me, but the burst of energy was contagious. When you… Read more Read more NO QUICK PICKS: THE RIGHT RETAIL TECHNOLOGY MAKES A DIFFERENCE If brick and mortar retail is to survive, retailers can’t just sell technology, but they must use technology in new and smart ways. Plus, it can’t be gadgets for the sake of gadgets, but must help customers in measurable ways. What that looks like is continued to evolve. It might be installing iPad stations where shoppers can browse (and hopefully buy) products that they can’t find on the retail floor. It may be putting up… Read more Read more RETAIL NEEDS TO GET IT’S GROOVE BACK Apple welcomes customers to its first store in Taiwan in July. Photo courtesy: Apple Is retail dead? This became the crux of the matter when I found myself invited to pitch in front of a leading retailer at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech. It was an exciting opportunity that was dulled when the name of the retailer was revealed. They are losing market share to Amazon, the big elephant in every conference room… Read more Read more SUPERHERO TOOLS INSPIRE CONSUMER – CENTRIC DESIGN Think about all our familiar, modern superheroes: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Ironman, and Wonder Woman. What differentiates them from others is, at least in part, a heroic attitude, let’s call it swagger. All the movies that trace their exploits did an excellent job of taking us vicariously through their adventures, making us believe that just about anything was possible. They beat up the bad guys, catch the corrupt official red handed, and move seamlessly through the… Read more Read more THE INTERNET AS THE GREAT EQUALIZER Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In fact, at least when it comes to figuring out strategy, one excellent way to find the path to success is to find someone who is doing what you would want to do and study that successful execution. You can create a successful model and understand market dynamics. You’ve seen it happen in business often before. For example, back in 1980’s, Motorola wanted to know whether cell phones… Read more Read more SMART MACHINE AGE SHIFTS THE FUTURE WORKFORCE Photo courtesy: Port of Atlanta Recently, I was invited to take a place on a Tech for Distribution Center (DC) panel during the annual Georgia Logistics Summit. We tackled some intriguing questions: During this time of technological change, what does the future work force look like? What is the most important quality to look for when hiring? Who will be best suited to carry the organization into the new smart machine age? The Center for Logistics… Read more Read more MICROMANAGING FOR SUCCESS: WHAT’S YOUR STYLE? Managers matter. Management style matters. For many workers, autonomy means trust. When I look back on my career, my best managers avoided micromanaging their employees. However, I’ve also seen it work for some leaders. Early in my career, while I still lived in India, I remember one interview, for a job with a newly-minted public company, very clearly. It was a Sunday afternoon in Bangalore. I had been scheduled to meet with Raj, but a… Read more Read more THE SMART MACHINE AGE: HUMANS NEED NOT APPLY At a recent Next-Gen Executives: Trans-formative Leadership in the Smart Machine Age Summit, I learned that the leadership component was as much or more important than the smart machine part. The professor leading the summit was Dr. Ed Hess from University of Virginia, Darden School of Business. After an exhaustive amount of research, he and his team have written this book titled Humility—a title that points to a key attribute of great leaders. Trans-formative leadership… Read more Read more TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN THE SMART MACHINE AGE I was excited to see an email from my alma mater, Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology, inviting me for a thought leadership summit. I knew I wanted to go, but I also knew I needed preparation. This complimentary, invitation-only VIP partner event that is hosted by Dr. Saby Mitra, who was our faculty director when I finished my MBA in 2012. He is being joined Dr. Ed Hess, professor of Business… Read more Read more FIND THE FIRE: GREAT TEAMS NEED PASSION You might call it ambition. You might call it determination. You might even call it passion. I call it fire in the belly. Whatever name it goes by, though, this characteristic is far and away what I look for in every one of our employees as we build our organization. Of course, every organization needs good people. High-tech supply chain and logistics organizations, though, need them even more to keep up with the fast pace… Read more Read more CONNECTIVITY & IOT CREATE GREATER SUPPLY CHAIN DATA COLLECTION OPTIONS Image courtesy: Amazon The Internet will disappear. There will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with, that you won’t even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room…. Read more Read more 7 THINGS ABOUT AMAZON THE RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN NEEDS TO KNOW Crystal Hanlon Photo courtesy: The Home Depot It was nice a Sunday evening at Orlando Florida. Our company, Smart Gladiator, was one of the Start-Up Technology companies that was selected to represent the Georgia team in the Retail Industry Association (RILA) Retail Supply Chain Conference 2017. The conference was full of educational sessions. Not just a source of subject matter experts discussing the major trends, the event was a great way to network and learn from… Read more Read more NEWEST SUPPLY CHAIN PARADIGM SHIFT HITS RETAIL In 1997, I had a half-day training with the leader of the multinational company I had just joined in Bangalore. He started with a story from Steven Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People about paradigm shift: One morning on a subway in New York, people were sitting quietly – some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his… Read more Read more RESUSCITATING RETAIL: BIG LESSONS FROM BIG WINNERS It is very easy to look at the adversity, see only doom and gloom and give up quickly. However, real winners see the opportunities behind the challenge. It may be tempting to assume that e-commerce is the new reality, but I believe retail sales still have promise. Let me share a story. Once, a gentleman had a beautiful bone china cup in which he would enjoy his tea, while reading his books. He relished the… Read more Read more EMPLOYEE MATH: WHEN TWO PLUS TWO IS MORE THAN FOUR A technical person would argue that 2+2 is always 4, never less or never more. This person would point to mathematics or physics. Perhaps, it would be an argument of common sense and logic. In human psychology, though, there’s a different kind of math, where two plus two might equal 10, 30 or more. When you build a team with the right kind of people, you capture extraordinary gains. Let me explain. In this mathematical… Read more Read more SMART PHONES DELIVER BEST QUALITY VIDEO Photo courtesy: Padcasters Today, businesses large and small are blogging to get their ideas out there. My company is no different. We know it makes a difference since potential customers mention them. At the same time, we are always looking for new way to explore and expand the conversation about technology and the supply chain. For some, video is more engaging and convenient. At the same time, viewers are becoming increasingly demanding about quality. They… Read more Read more EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT LEADS TO SUCCESS It’s been said that hindsight is 20/20… and it’s certainly true that taking a moment to ponder the outcomes of the projects and activities of the year is useful. I’ve had wild successes, as well as some equally fantastic failures. As a project manager, I’ve always believe that if my team did not accomplish its goals, it pointed to a failure on my part. Learning from both the ups and the downs is the first… Read more Read more BOTS MAY BE THE NEXT BIG SUPPLY CHAIN INVASION I ran into a bot for the very first time back in the year 2000. These computer programs ideally automate tasks normally handled by humans. For me, the bot streamlined a shopping task. At the time, it blew my mind. I was heading out on a business trip to the Netherlands, and I wanted to capture the trip in pictures with a new camera. My job was to support the roll-out of a warehouse management… Read more Read more THE TRUMP MANIFESTO & THE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN By Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 Much of the United States is still reeling from the results of the presidential election. No matter which candidate you supported, the final count bore little resemblance to what pundits predicted in the days and weeks leading up to the election. People on both sides of the political aisle are asking the same question: What happens now? What does this mean for us? For electronics distribution, logistics, and manufacturing, the… Read more Read more FAST CHARGING COMES TO MATURITY TO SUPPORT SUPPLY CHAIN TASKS Photo courtesy: Samsung Google announced its Pixel phone bragging that it could last up to seven hours after a 15-minute charge. How cool is that? You don’t need to go through a miserable day if (or maybe more truthfully when) you forget to charge your phone the night before. I know from experience. When I had an iPhone 5, it would be a hard day if I missed charging before I went to sleep. Then, I got… Read more Read more THE REAL PROBLEM WITH DIGITAL ASSISTANTS Business people all had real assistants, people who helped them. Now, on our mobile devices, we all have digital assistants (i.e. Siri, Alexa, S-Voice etc.) on our mobile devices. They’ve become the virtual assistants of those once vital Girl Friday. In some ways, it’s an idea whose time has come. Back in the days, we weren’t sending emails. We weren’t writing Word documents. We weren’t copying and pasting documents. Computers changed everything… Now, we work… Read more Read more STORYTELLING: THE SECRET WEAPON OF GREAT ORGANIZATIONS If as the saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words, then I believe that a story is worth 1,000 pictures. Why is Akbar called Akbar the Great? Why is Alexander called Alexander the Great? Who else has earned this moniker? This was how one conversation started in my ninth grade history class. None of us knew why our history teacher, one just newly arrived in our classroom was asking this. In the past, history… Read more Read more THE STARTUP PHENOMENON: HOW 3PL’S CAN USE IT TO INCREASE VALUE & CAPTURE MARKET It’s true that necessity is the mother of invention. Creativity, though, is the father, and knowledge is the midwife. As people, we are wired for survival. When we are in tough times, our creativity and persistent shine through. By staying focused and thinking creatively, we can come up with solutions and take advantage of each opportunity as it arises. I know that from experience. When I graduated from college as a mechanical engineer, I was… Read more Read more SOFTWARE-CENTRIC WORLD TAKES OVER SUPPLY CHAIN In the summer between high school and college, I got to tour with my Dad in the mountains of Western Ghats in South India. His job was to ensure the communication infrastructure that was supporting a network of hydroelectric power projects in that area ran without a hitch. One plant, called the Kadamparai Hydroelectric Pumped Storage Power Plant, was a unique project. The plant could be run in two modes: as a generator or in pump… Read more Read more CURIOSITY: BUILDING SUCCESS IN THE ORGANIZATION I still remember a conversation I had with a science teacher at a science exhibition when I was in the 11th grade. This man talked with excitement and passion about electricity. He explained, in detail, how a three phase power supply system works and outlined the benefits of it for me. Although I didn’t understand everything he said, he aroused my curiosity. I came home and started trying to build a vehicle I had seen at… Read more Read more SUPPLY CHAIN GRADUATE DEGREES: MAKE THE MOST OF EDUCATION In recent years, many prominent universities have developed graduate level programs in supply chain, procurement, and logistics. Many go after an Masters of Business Administration (MBA) or other masters level designation in hopes of being promoted to managing people. And yet, that doesn’t always happen. A master’s degree is a great tool, but you have to make sure it’s the right tool for the problem you are hoping to solve. To get the most out… Read more Read more LOVE OR MONEY: LOOKING AT THE INGREDIENTS OF BUSINESS My grandmother made my favorite Indian sweets, especially fresh and hot mysorepaks, filled with ghee, and sugar, and love. Nothing was better. If you ask most people about love, they’ll talk about family. Almost as often, you’ll hear about home-cooked food served with devotion by a doting parent perhaps. Meanwhile, in the United States at least, you may also end up talking about business and, almost always, money. There’s an inherent belief that, with the… Read more Read more WINDOWS CE – END OF LIFE – WHY IS NOW THE RIGHT TIME TO TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR SCAN GUN, NOT JUST SCAN GUN BUT ENTIRE DATA COLLECTION STRATEGY & TACTIC? Replenishment involves moving inventory from reserve location to active location so that it may be picked, packed and shipped. In the case of the item can’t be located quickly, or there is an error in finding or utilizing it, this small mistake can cause the entire workflow to break down. By setting up a dedicated replenishment team with agile strategies as listed in this article, you could avoid these kinds of scenarios in your slowdowns… Read more Read more DOES YOUR WRIST MOUNTED SCANNER STINK? Yes, I am surprised this was one major problem why every single operator hated with this wrist mounted device. This was when we started doing the research. This was when I joined the MBA program at Georgia Tech, and there was a business plan competition, so we picked up this project, a venture project, where we come up with an idea, then we work through the plan to determine the product market fit, marketing strategy,… Read more Read more FIVE KEY ISSUES EMERGE DURING ARNALL GOLDEN GREGORY’S INTERVIEWS AT THE 2017 GEORGIA LOGISTICS Approximately 1,200 people attended the 9th Georgia Logistics Summit, which was held May 16-17 at the Georgia World Congress Center. Arnall Golden Gregory has been a summit sponsor since 2013. Michael D. Golden, co-leader of AGG’s Logistics and Transportation Practice, with 18 attorneys, serves on the Georgia Logistics Summit Executive Committee. This year’s keynote speaker was Sandra MacQuillan, Chief Supply Officer at Kimberly-Clark, who was introduced by AGG partner Ashley Steiner Kelly. Another partner, Andrew J. Schutt, moderated… Read more Read more EVOLUTION OF DATA COLLECTION TECH IN DC’S Data Collection in Warehouses Data collection is a very important business function that needs to be performed in a Distribution Center in order to maintain accurate inventory count real time of all the SKUs that a distribution center ships for all its customers. Hence all the processes that are performed reflect inventory count real time and hence orders can be fulfilled at a much faster pace, without shortages, without mispicks and delivering the highest levels... Read more Read more HOW HAS VOICE CHANGED AS A DATA COLLECTION TECHNOLOGY? I still remember, it is so fresh in my mind, I was a developer that was part of the professional services team supporting the Warehouse Management iSeries deployment for our customers and I got this very interesting design spec that said Voice Picking. I got excited and I met with the Consultant/Business Analyst that was designing this system, I was educated on this new process, where in the users would talk to the computer, I... Read more Read more 10 BEST PRACTICES TO IMPROVE ORDER PICKING EFFICIENCY IN YOUR MULTI-CHANNEL DISTRIBUTION CENTERS OR WAREHOUSES Read more VIDEO: POWERING THE SUPPLY CHAIN WITH MOBILE TECHNOLOGY FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST PUGA SANKARA Read more PODCAST: POWERING THE SUPPLY CHAIN WITH MOBILE TECHNOLOGY FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST PUGA SANKARA Smart Gladiator helps Retailers, Distributors and Logistics Service Providers mobile enable their Supply Chain & Operations processes. By mobile enabling these processes, companies can not only realize tremendous cost savings, but also provide a much more user friendly work environment for everyone engaged in executing fulfillment streams. Providing mobile capabilities such as texting, face-timing, video based training, and picture sharing enables better collaboration in operations and engages millennial workers with latest, fastest technology. Hear about… Read more Read more PODCAST: USING TECHNOLOGY TO STREAMLINE TRAINING EFFICIENCY Training warehouse labor is costly and time consuming. We spoke with supply chain technology expert Puga Sankara to learn strategies and innovations that reduce the burden of training. Our conversation spans from simple, inexpensive solutions that can be implemented immediately without overhauling your current system, to the incredible technologies on the horizon you should have on your radar. Listen to the podcast or read through the transcript below to learn how to mitigate your current training… Read more Read more WEBINAR: POWERING THE SUPPLY CHAIN WITH MOBILE TECHNOLOGY Smart Gladiator helps Retailers, Distributors and Logistics Service Providers mobile enable their Supply Chain & Operations processes. By mobile enabling these processes, companies can not only realize tremendous cost savings, but also provide a much more user friendly work environment for everyone engaged in executing fulfillment streams. Providing mobile capabilities such as texting, face-timing, video based training, and picture sharing enables better collaboration in operations and engages millennial workers with latest, fastest technology. Hear about… Read more Read more SMART GLADIATOR – SIMON & SCHUSTER TESTIMONIAL VIDEO Smart Gladiator Hands Free Supply Chain Tracking Wearable Computer and Barcode Scanner – Simon & Schuster Read more TEAMWORK: CRITICAL & ACHIEVABLE FOR THE SUPPLY CHAIN Read more DISCIPLINED DAILY CYCLE COUNTS ENHANCE DC CULTURE Read more CAPTURING PASSION IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN PROFESSION Read more DESIGNING USER-FRIENDLY SYSTEMS: NOT AS EASY AS IT SOUNDS Read more GOOGLE ALPHABET’S BOSTON DYNAMICS ON THE BLOCK Read more TECHNOLOGY OR PROCESS: FIND THE ROAD TO PRODUCTIVITY Read more TRUST BUT VERIFY: WISDOM ON 3PL RELATIONS Read more SAMSUNG BEATING APPLE IN THE INNOVATION GAME Read more OIL DRILLS & APPLES: SENSORS PROVIDE INSIGHT Read more INNOVATION & EFFECTIVE CHANGE MGMT PROVE A CRITICAL COMBO Read more DATA RICH, INFORMATION POOR: CONUNDRUM OF DISTRIBUTION CENTER Read more SMART GLADIATOR PRODUCT VIDEO Introduction to highly durable Smart Supply Chain Management Wearable device from Smart Gladiator. Read more VENTURE ATLANTA NAMES STARTUP PRESENTERS FOR 2015 CONFERENCE Join more than the 800 technology entrepreneurs, investors and senior technology executives from across the country at the 2015 Venture Atlanta Conference. The 2015 Venture Atlanta Conference, the Southeast’s premier technology innovation event, announced the companies selected to present on Oct. 20-21 at the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta. This year’s presenters comprise the strongest roster yet of both early- and later-stage companies. They showcase the opportunity within the region’s technology community. Venture Atlanta has… Read more Read more Load More Articles SCHEDULE A LIVE DEMO Smart Gladiator was established in 2013 and is based at Technology Square in the Midtown area of Atlanta, Georgia, USA, a technology community that is recognized as a national, if not global, locus for mobility technology. Smart Gladiator LLC, ATDC Advanced Technology Development Center, Georgia Institute of Technology – Tech Square 75 5th Street, Suite 3135 Atlanta GA 30308 Support Ph# (678) 481-5486 Home_form Your Name * Your Email * Subject Your Message reCAPTCHA IMPROVE YOUR WAREHOUSE PRODUCTIVITY WITH SMART GLADIATOR'S MOBILE & IOT-ENABLED SUPPLY CHAIN PLATFORM Smart Gladiator Wearables for Warehouse Improves Picking Efficiency, Productivity and Saves Time and Money in Operations such as Picking, Receiving, Cycle-counting and moving products to Put-away Locations. Our Affordable Wearable Devices are Ergonomically Designed and Need Minimum or No Training to Operate. The Warehouse wearable software incorporates Unique Features Such as Voice-enabling the whole solution using google-voice, Gamification, Video Training, Photo Sharing and Text Messaging. We test our software and hardware for every scenario that would happen during the warehouse operations. We have extensive warehouse ruggedized hardware devices line up for operators, supervisors and truck operators. We do customized installation both in the hardware and software parts of your distribution center. Also, reduce retail chargebacks/ freight claims by image enabling your Supply Chain with the LoadProof App. Save on your warehouse chargebacks and freight claims with the LoadProof app. Chargebacks/ freight claims are a major expense while shipping to major retailers, they could be as high as 13% of your annual revenue. Schedule a demo now with one of our supply chain experts and improve your warehouse productivity. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR SUPPLY CHAIN WEEKLY NEWSLETTER Leave this field empty if you're human: FOLLOW US * linkedin * facebook * youtube Copyright 2022 Smart Gladiator LLC, All rights reserved. Privacy policy Blockchain Ready Use LoadProof to Block Chain Enable Your Supply Chain – What does this mean? Automatically perform the following: * Send Blockchain transactions with pictures, when pictures are taken as a proof of delivery. * Publish status updates of Shipments & Loads by sending Blockchain Transactions with pictures. * Update smart contracts with Pictures residing in LoadProof cloud. * Transfer Pictures as part of an ASN to depict that the merchandise was delivered in pristine condition. * Share pictures of condition of the merchandise in a claims situation. * Leverage OCR and capture data from the pictures into databases. × VP OF DISTRIBUTION OR SVP OF SUPPLY CHAIN OR VP OF IT 1. Increases EPP, using budgeted line items. 2. Increases employee engagement – without additional expense. 3. Reduces errors and costs. 4. Minimizes injury. 5. Much better Employee engagement. 6. Provides a new approach to enabling hands free operations. The large display, flexible touchscreen keypads, allow existing applications to be deployed hands free while leveraging latest mobile capabilities without re-engineering! × DC SUPERVISOR OR DC MANAGER OR DC GENERAL MANAGER Millennial friendly technology, less onboarding time, very easy adoption – touch screen keypad, and 43% of Millennials already use IOS, familiar with Facetime, 85% of Millennials aged 18-24 own devices and 86% aged 25-34 own them, consume a lot of video on their smartphones, and are highly comfortable with this medium, they understand and like apps. Devices are light weight, compared to the Wrist Mounts & about 1/3rd of the Weight when compared with RF handhelds (this reduces the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve damage, stress on the arm etc). They are also hygienic. Replacing devices is quicker and less costly: Cost of Replacement of parts is less because of Smart Gladiator Bluetooth scanner – Today the devices in the market have corded scanner (they don’t use wireless bluetooth technology) so if the cord breaks, they need to replace the entire scanner and that costs more vs Less for the Smart Gladiator scanner. Just as rugged as competitors, with a rugged case and nano-technologyscreen protector – rugged, durable case and nano-technology screen protector, offering: Protection against Bacteria Protection against Scratches, Dust and Fingerprints ×