Smart manufacturing technologies along with IOT technologies have reached the point now where they can provide new opportunities in products and services to the retail omni market. When combined into the collaborative network services and capabilities smart manufacturing can provide a means to better support peaks and valleys in product demand and most importantly support a shortened product development lifecycle. I really see the collaborative network with the extended partners as a key factor to the incorporation of smart manufacturing practices in the retail marketplace. This will allow retailers to better support the changing demands and shortened product life cycle without increasing overstock inventory. The collaborative network provides the foundation for the partners to take advantage of smart manufacturing technologies without a large investment and this low investment is the key to increased adoption.
Smart manufacturing has been around for a while and is only getting smarter through continuous improvements. Now I believe we have reached a point where smart manufacturing, IOT and the collaborative network will combine to produce capabilities that will drive increased acceptance and adoption of the technologies in the retail market. The acceptance will be driven by specialty retailers that focus on customization of products to support customer demands for products that are customized to their particular tastes. Color is the most obvious customization opportunity and a very simple example of smart manufacturing that is especially easy to support online. The retailer can provide a wide variety of color variations that can be produced at the time of order and then shipped directly to the consumer or the brick and mortar outlet. This example allows the product to be offered in a wide variety of colors only limited the consumer’s imagination and does not require an increased level of inventory to support and potentially require overstock sales reductions.
Smart manufacturing can also support commodity product replenishment orders to support reduced replenishment cycles which in turn will also reduce overstock inventory as well. Smart manufacturing combined with reorders of commodity products or IoT enhanced products can eliminate the guesswork and the consumer tracking of these products. A good example of this is cloud enabled printers that connect to the cloud to support wireless printing from any device and location. These devices can monitor the printing volumes and automatically order and ship ink as necessary. It is an easy next step for these IoT products to reach out to maintenance and support when and issue is identified as well.
The omni market combined with the collaborative network now provide the framework to efficiently utilize and integrate smart manufacturing to support the demands of consumers more efficiently and effectively providing enhanced product selection without increasing overhead of increased inventory. This allows the consumer to take advantage of impulse demands at any time through any device. This develop delivers a great deal of flexibility and capability to the retailer to support the changing demands of the consumer. This is a big deal for retailers in the evolution of the market and in addition is an especially important reason for the retailers to maintain their focus and support on the continuously evolving marketplace.
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