Considering new technologies for inventory physical count at the airbus warehouse.

Abstract

Airbus Supply Chain Management and Logistics is trying to find the new technology concepts to optimize the warehouse management in terms of the inventory control. Inventory physical count (IPC) is a method to verify that the actual inventory amount at the physical locations. Three technologies including drone, image processing, and Weightlog are studied to analyse the pros and cons for the application of the inventory physical count at the Airbus warehouse. The data of the warehouse management is collected at the subcontracted warehouse operated by Kuehne Nagel in Toulouse, France to understand the concept of the warehouse management and key activities. Regarding the data from the on-site observation, there are four classification of SKUs in the storage area including large-sized, standard-sized, small-sized, and non-standard SKUs. These various classifications determine the selection of the new technology for IPC. Drone and image processing potentially work together in large-sized, standard-sized, and non-standard SKU storage area, but the Weightlog is suitable for the small-sized SKU storage area. However, the Airbus warehouse management team need to improve the activities in each storage area to enhance the performance of these new technologies.