Every night in its cavernous warehouses around the country, each of hundreds of product pickers walk an average of 10 miles through labyrinths of shelves that can stretch the length and width of four football fields. In a single shift, each picker tracks down as many as 4,000 products-from a bottle of aspirin to cases of Nyquil. It used to be a monstrous task fraught by paper orders, misplaced products, inaccurate inventory, and human error. If there are several products on the list, the computers map the quickest route to find them. Pickers then pull the items from the shelves and scan product bar codes with devices worn on their fingers like rings, allowing their computers to verify that the correct items have been selected.
Pickers type in answers and their computers send out airborne inventory updates.
Wireless devices such as wearable computers and tags that send homing signals are helping companies keep track of assets, from small warehouse items to truckloads of parts traversing international ports. Wireless technology could save companies millions by providing reliable inventory numbers, improving order fulfillment, reducing in-transit theft, and by accurately tracking goods as they move through the proverbial pipe. Soon, smart companies will enjoy reliable access to their entire inventory-no matter where goods are at in the shipping and storage process. Creating a wireless warehouse isn't cheap. But according to Tom Magill, VP of logistics technologies for the company, the system has paid for itself many times over.