Welcome to the 15th November Warehouse & Logistics News. Across the UK mist and fog are swirling, leaves are falling and people are thinking about Christmas. Meanwhile Britain’s warehousing and logistics professionals have to stay focused and get on with the job in all weathers.
Our features in this issue are designed to help you stay on top of things at this time of year and beyond. ‘The Loading Bay’ looks at Industrial doors, dock levellers and dock lifts. ‘Power Sources’ covers all aspects of motive power in the warehouse and logistics environment, including batteries, LPG and engines.
Also in this issue you will find our exclusive preview of LuxLive, the lighting exhibition at London ExCel on 18-19 November, for which Warehouse & Logistics News is the official Media Partner for the third year running.
We live in an omnichannel world, with online shopping expected to hit a new annual peak on Friday 27th November, aka Black Friday. Yes, in the process some retailers’ payment systems around the globe may freeze momentarily, but on previous form everything will pick up again soon afterwards, shoppers will be able to place orders and goods will get where they are meant to be. Reassuringly, according to a new survey from Honeywell, which you can read about on our front page, the majority of distribution centres here and in Europe and the US are in good shape to grasp the omnichannel opportunity, and the technology is here for the rest to catch up. As previously reported, the integration of Vocollect into Honeywell is leading to ‘voice’ working in combination with other supply chain hardware to create a single point of view for workers and managers and improve efficiency.
Honeywell’s survey confirms that DCs are being challenged to keep pace with consumer expectations for faster, more accurate delivery. If they are not ready, they have to pay the price. The survey reveals the average global cost of one picking error is £38, equating to poorly equipped DCs losing on average over £250,000 annually from ‘mispicks.’ That said, the survey shows nearly two-thirds of distribution centres polled already support omnichannel distribution, and have data capture and asset tracking systems in place to fulfil orders from retailers and consumers purchasing on-line.
And reading the survey, we can expect the rest to follow suit. An average of 84 percent of IT decision-makers agreed that investing in data capture technology has made a positive impact on their omnichannel distribution strategy, and nearly 9 in 10 distribution centres represented in the poll expected to add voice technology by 2020.
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