Manhattan Associates Inc. has claimed to announce the introduction of the industry’s first IoT-enabled store inventory and fulfillment solution for omnichannel fulfillment.
The supply chain and omnichannel solutions leader is enhancing the store inventory tracking and order picking capabilities of Manhattan’s Store Inventory and Fulfillment (SIF) solution with native RFID support, to significantly improve store inventory accuracy and store order fulfillment speed.
Retailers are increasingly turning to their brick-and-mortar stores to fulfill online orders. However, due to the dynamic nature of store inventory, it can be difficult to maintain accurate inventory levels. According to Auburn University’s RFID Lab, the average level of inventory accuracy in the warehouse is close to 99%. By contrast, accuracy in the retail store averages below 65%, which often leads to inaccurate promising and missed order fulfillment commitments, resulting in frustrated customers and lost sales.
Manhattan’s new solution leverages the latest in RFID technology to help stores improve inventory accuracy, enhance operations and fulfill orders with a level of efficiency previously not achievable. The technology integrates with hardware systems that track RFID-tagged items to bring store inventory accuracy up to warehouse levels. Manhattan’s offering can work with any RFID solution provider. The company’s first RFID partnership is with Zebra Technologies’ Smart Lens solution.
The precise inventory location information provided by RFID can reduce the time store associates spend locating and picking items by more than 60%. Using the location data from the RFID tags, Manhattan’s mobile Store Inventory and Fulfillment application presents store associates with dynamic visual maps of the location of every item in the store, as well as the most efficient route for picking order items.
“Manhattan Associates is committed to enabling our customers to adapt to market demands and provide strategic advantages,” said Amy Tennent, director of Product Management for Manhattan Associates. “This new application of RFID technology gives retailers the tools they need to fulfill orders from their stores confidently and efficiently.”
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