Take control over your assets: Utilizing Digital Keys in Forward Warehousing
Push to start: a simple concept that has become a desirable and somewhat standard feature in the automotive industry, bringing the joy of convenience to thousands of car buyers.
So why not bring similar keyless convenience, or digital keys, to your warehouses?
Let’s use the example of Forward Warehousing. We all want our packages a little bit faster: for every industry, faster package delivery means less downtime and more uptime. You wait, itching for the knock on the door or the “Delivery Successful” email so you can move forward with your day. Companies have recognized this demand with Amazon leading the way, reducing delivery time from one week to one day with their Amazon Prime Same Day Delivery. Some couriers have achieved this lightning speed by employing Forward Stocking Locations (FSLs) or mini warehouses located closer to their customers.
FSLs can be manned or unmanned. In the latter case, service technicians and other workers who might urgently need a part are able to access the FSL without an attendant present. Healthcare is an industry where this kind of approach could mean the difference between life and death: if a machine necessary for providing quality health care breaks, a technician can get the spare part much faster from an FSL, even if in the middle of the night with no attendant around. Applications like this require a secure system for providing remote guest access and tracking asset removal.
The answer is digital keys.
In an ideal world, forward warehousing will be unmanned. Doing so will reduce costs, particularly in situations where an FSL’s frequency of use will be lower or at unpredictable hours. This requires a technology that enables secure, unattended access to locations and assets with minimal friction. Digital keys allow you to control, store, and share access to codes that promote safe delivery and retrieval, even if there are no workers around.
Even with manned warehouses, utilizing digital keys ensures you are aware of who has access to your assets, when they are in use, and when they are not. But what’s the most effective digital key?
Most digital keys rely on Bluetooth technology which requires an app to be stored on a mobile device or a pincode. Supply chains today, already run on barcodes. Barcodes can be a cost effective, secure, portable and extremely low friction digital key.
When workers are retrieving packages for a customer, digital keys in the form of barcodes can enable the release of a package from its secure storage compartment. The barcode ensures that the package is the right package and can be used to update the entire supply chain of the package's status, from the sender to the courier and the individual retrieving the package. A digital key therefore provides quick access, improved efficiency, and system-wide visibility. There are many other scenarios where using digital key technology will reduce costs, loss of packages and assets, and even minimize opportunity for human error: warehouses, internal inventory stores, cargo shipping to name a few. Furthermore, such an approach is completely on demand, minimizing downtime and improving convenience for the customer.
BoxLock offers a smart padlock, digital key solution for asset control and inventory management. With BoxLock, you simply push to start to activate the scanner, scan the barcode, and unlock the lock to retrieve assets. BoxLock therefore removes the need for a user to own the BoxLock app; just push, scan, and unlock. When needing to grant temporary, guest access to an asset secured with BoxLock, BoxLock owners can send guest access barcodes over SMS text. This no-app approach using existing infrastructure that everyone has (SMS text) greatly reduces friction in the user experience and minimizes the chance of an unsuccessful experience due to technical difficulties.
Forward warehousing will play a major role in the development of fast, efficient, low cost supply chains and BoxLock, as a digital key, can accelerate that development: just push, scan, and unlock. Can a physical key do that?
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