In response to the ever-changing digital landscape, the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry has directed its focus to edge computing, a distributed IT architecture transforming how businesses process data. It not only reduces the amount of data travelling around a network, leading to lower latency and faster overall speeds, but also minimizes security threats because of its decentralized structure. Edge computing optimizes internet devices and web applications for faster performance by moving computing resources from clouds and data centers as close as possible to the originating source of data. The pandemic’s mandatory containment measures and health and safety compliances have put huge pressure on remote operations covering warehouse management processes, resulting in the rising need of edge data centers.
With the vast amount and variety of data being handled daily in supply-chain management processes (as shown in Figure 1), CPG enterprises require greater levels of efficiency and speed to analyze processes and make quick improvements, as well as identify inefficiencies. Edge computing can deliver these kinds of benefits by bringing the storage and processing of data closer to the equipment, allowing teams to gather and analyze data on equipment performance from IoT sensors. Automated analytical computations on the edge data center generate real-time insights that enable operations to run at a required efficiency while reducing data transmission costs and downtime, and they’re also governed by compliance and data security needs at the edge.
In an edge-based intelligent warehouse management process for CPGs, which have limited shelf-life and are intended to be used quickly, a significant amount of data is generated. Stakeholders then analyze the data to derive valuable insights, resulting in effective real-time inventory monitoring and decision-making. For instance, cosmetics typically deteriorate if exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations and thus require temperature-controlled environments from production to consumption. A warehouse’s IoT temperature sensors can measure humidity, temperature, and light levels to ensure the data points do not exceed the defined threshold. With edge-driven continuous monitoring and reporting of these conditions, quality products can be shipped, compliance can be met, and unexpected expenses can be avoided.
The impact of edge computing on warehouse management
A deeper look into the supply chain, from transport and logistics to shipping to a trading partner, reveals that edge can enable a smooth and efficient process flow:
Advancing equipment maintenance with edge-driven predictive analytics
In addition to enhancing inventory monitoring, adopting IoT and edge-based analytics can transform how organizations manage equipment maintenance. The performance of predictive analytics models locally optimizes and enhances the speed and performance of predictive equipment maintenance. The implementation of predictive analytics solutions not only attenuates data storage costs, but also facilitates real-time updates. Various machines and equipment connected to sensors, actuators, beacons, and cameras produce a huge amount of operational data, as shown in Figure 2. Analytics and computational capabilities integrated into these devices can analyze the collected data at the edge layer, providing real-time insights that enable operators to make informed and prompt decisions.
Within this edge layer, edge devices such as smart phones and PCs communicate to the edge data center through gateways. The synchronization of these databases installed on the edge devices helps prevent any loss or corruption of data. Edge computing also improves the performance and speed of ML predictive models, which are implemented locally, overcoming the dependency on network connectivity for transferring data from a device to the cloud. AI and analytical models can then aggregate and analyze the data from the various devices. With the resulting data-driven insights, organizations can develop more efficient operations and improve asset lifecycle management, helping lower processing costs and strengthen their bottom line.
In addition to the vast advantages that edge computing delivers, it provides transparency across the supply chain by assuring real-time product and pallet matching while alerting staff to fraudulent barcodes or wrongly placed pallets. This not only eliminates the need for traditional hand-scanning barcodes, but also reduces error rates and enhances warehouse process optimization. With these benefits, the CPG industry can utilize edge computing to boost operational efficiency as well as offer a unique customer experience, determine customer trends, and promote security and compliance. Edge, in combination with 5G networks, will further optimize functionality, modernize processes, and deliver new cloud-driven experiences. Data processing in closer proximity to end users, enabled by edge and 5G, can reduce costs and latency, further enhancing operational performance.
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