Additive Talks : What is the first step in implementing a digital warehouse and what happens next?
Unlike the retail industry where products stored in physical warehouses tend to be purchased at a fast pace, such a modus operandi increasingly presents some flaws in manufacturing industries where items easily become overstocked. Indeed, a physical warehouse requires minimum order quantity requirements, which means new parts should be produced to meet quantity requirements but can sit on the shelves for years, waiting for a customer in need.
On the other hand, understocked parts also pose a problem as they usually require very long lead times at the production level, not to mention that some of them are still being produced using conventional manufacturing processes which are often ideal for volume production.
At the end of the day, such challenges somehow affect organizations’ profitability.
To address these issues, manufacturers have imagined the concept of a “digital warehouse” – an appealing concept when we know that the ugly truth about warehousing is that most organizations do not know exactly what their true costs are at the end of the year.
Here is the thing, although the concept seems perfectly compatible with Additive Manufacturing, heavy industries like the Oil & Gas often question its viability with regards, to its efficient implementation and silent challenges.
Who should implement a digital warehouse? Most importantly, what is the first step to do so and what happens next?
Our next Additive Talks session gathers a line-up of forward-thinking experts on the topic.
