Preparing warehouse operations for next-generation descriptive and predictive analytics
Accurate decision making is key to driving sustainable business value, increasing resilience, satisfying demand, and improving performance. Digital twins can play a vital role in enabling this, leveraging enterprise data and new technologies to bring the right information to the right people, at the right time.
We recently helped a client create a digital twin roadmap for its warehouse operations, helping it to realise ambitions through a structured innovation funnel approach.
Our client, a major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company, wanted to identify the highest areas of value to its warehouse teams, using those insights to kick-start a range of new efficiency initiatives.
The client aimed to increase visibility into operational performance to improve resource allocation and better manage complexity. It also wanted to decrease reliance on manual planning and task-assignment, and implement new schedules that push capabilities.
Furthermore, the client sought to give operations teams the insights needed to successfully manage strategic changes and establish new performance requirements — with an overall objective of reducing outbound shipment service level times from three days to just one.
The primary goal of the project was meeting the outbound order fulfilment requirements of the company’s operations team. This required specific attention to near-time operational visibility, target setting, resource utilisation, evaluations, manual planning processes, reducing lead time, and implementing ‘what-if’ planning capabilities.
We began by completing multiple advanced predictive simulation models for this client, to optimise the design of a major intralogistics automation project.
The operations and digitalisation teams then wanted to take their predictive analytics capabilities to the next level with a warehouse digital twin.
Our proven approach to all digital twin initiatives ensures that projects result in realised business value. This project consisted of the following stages:
• Use case discovery workshops
• Solution area mapping and identifying appropriate technologies
• Solution area evaluation and prioritisation
• Feasibility assessments, including financial, technical, and organisational change evaluations
• An overall implementation roadmap and initial cost estimates
Starting with site challenges and digitalisation opportunities, the project quickly identified more than 30 possible solution areas that could be incorporated into the digital twin.
The top three solution areas — those which created the highest value for the organisation — were then selected for deeper feasibility assessments, implementation outlines, and cost estimates.
The client is now using this roadmap for strategic approvals and implementation planning.
