2 responses to “SAP Supply Chain Augmented Reality”
Clinton
Retinal display is nothing new and in the warehouse personal information systems for guided picking and enforeced picking through picking stations are very commonplace for high volume picking. Amazon, QVC and Zappas are renowned for these methods.
This type of approach illustrated here is particularly good if you have an existing daily operation that you are trying to maintain and you want to augment picking quality. If, as in this example Daimler Chrysler had a limitless budget and limitless real estate sure, they could use robotic picking but still using people is not likely to go away any time soon.
Marc
This is ridiculous. If we get to the point of needing to wear something like this to pick parts, you might as well just execute the humans and go totally robotic. The human is the weakest link in this path anyway. Why bother with pickers when you could have robots. And why use humans to put the engines together?
The only thing that the human is necessary for in this instance is as a consumer to buy the cars. That drives the need for the engines. Replace the two inefficient human layers here (pickers and put-ers-together-ers) and you will drive the profit up. Then, of course, you wouldn’t need shift managers, because there is no PERSON to manage. BI programs can monitor inventory and events from robiticized production, so another inefficient layer goes away. You can have semi-trained labor watch displays (or replace THEM altogether). Inventory can be monitored and orders submitted to suppliers via web services, so another layer goes away. This will also reduce personnel costs for HR, administrative support, and plant maintenance.
I think they’re on to something… but they have to work on reducing/removing the most expensive/least dependable part of the equation — the human.
Comments
2 responses to “SAP Supply Chain Augmented Reality”
Retinal display is nothing new and in the warehouse personal information systems for guided picking and enforeced picking through picking stations are very commonplace for high volume picking. Amazon, QVC and Zappas are renowned for these methods.
This type of approach illustrated here is particularly good if you have an existing daily operation that you are trying to maintain and you want to augment picking quality. If, as in this example Daimler Chrysler had a limitless budget and limitless real estate sure, they could use robotic picking but still using people is not likely to go away any time soon.
This is ridiculous. If we get to the point of needing to wear something like this to pick parts, you might as well just execute the humans and go totally robotic. The human is the weakest link in this path anyway. Why bother with pickers when you could have robots. And why use humans to put the engines together?
The only thing that the human is necessary for in this instance is as a consumer to buy the cars. That drives the need for the engines. Replace the two inefficient human layers here (pickers and put-ers-together-ers) and you will drive the profit up. Then, of course, you wouldn’t need shift managers, because there is no PERSON to manage. BI programs can monitor inventory and events from robiticized production, so another inefficient layer goes away. You can have semi-trained labor watch displays (or replace THEM altogether). Inventory can be monitored and orders submitted to suppliers via web services, so another layer goes away. This will also reduce personnel costs for HR, administrative support, and plant maintenance.
I think they’re on to something… but they have to work on reducing/removing the most expensive/least dependable part of the equation — the human.