Technology Overview

A traditional rack, that is usually located near the place of operations, is used as an unmanned forward supply storage rack to ensure that there is has sufficient supplies to keep the operations going. Conventional inventory replenishment by the central warehouse or suppliers is done by deploying manual labour to check the stock quantity and to top up to its optimal level. Such traditional racks and its manual replenishment processes are common in hospital wards, clinics, surgical rooms or high-mix low-volume operations such as in maintenance, repair, and overhaul operations. It is often very laborious and not timely, resulting in operations disruptions when supplies are depleted.

This technology offer, Smart Inventory Monitoring on Storage Rack (SIMR), enables efficient inventory management by tracking the inventory items on the racks and automatically triggering stock replenishment. It uses a suite of sensors to digitalise a traditional rack for near real-time inventory monitoring.

Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages

This cost-effective solution enables near real-time inventory monitoring, inventory visibility, active, dynamic low supply warning and inventory usage forecasting.

The solution makes use of weight, proximity sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to improve the detection and monitoring of inventory levels and the replenishment process. The end user has the flexibility to decide if the solution is to be set up on an existing rack, or fabricated as a new rack. The setup can also be customised to suit items of different dimensions and sizes. The current prototype has a touch screen display to show the current quantities of each item that it is monitoring and reporting.

This technology offer can function as a stand-alone system, or can be integrated into existing inventory systems through API calls. In a trial at a hospital, it managed to reach 95% inventory accuracy with 5-seconds inventory update intervals.

Potential Applications

This technology offer can be used to digitalise a traditional rack, so that near real-time inventory management can be implemented, allowing for more efficient operations to be carried out. This technology offer is suitable for use in the following operations:

• Unmanned storage rooms
• Healthcare industry
• Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul operations

Customer Benefit

In digitalising traditional racks using this technology offer, the customer will be able to reap the following benefits:

• Near real-time inventory visibility
• Near real-time inventory monitoring
• Logging and tracking of usage trends
• Cost effectiveness
• Timely inventory/supply replenishment
• Improvement in productivity
• Easy to set up and retrofit on existing racks
• Easy to operate