Retail
The retail industry is at a tipping point. The pandemic has changed everything. After years of attempting to control costs through lean supply chains and just in time inventory, retailers were unable to rapidly scale and meet consumer demands for the most basic goods. The winners and losers are easy to see on Main Street.
Big box retailers, regional grocery and houseware chains, and outlets quickly accelerated their online solutions and are still in business. Specialty goods, those relying on mall locations, or facing expensive retail rents have shuttered. As the fragility of the supply chain became apparent, the supply chain itself became the most important and vulnerable aspect of retail success for both cost savings and efficiencies.
Retail Supply Chain Stressors:
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Just in time inventory management
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Cross dock and distribution management
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Dependable and monitored refrigerated and frozen cold chains
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Forecasting
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Cost cutting/streamlining to remain price competitive
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Sustainability requirements needs to reduces costs, meet retailer mandates and improve consumer goodwill for the environment
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Transport goods from place to place, hire drivers and fill warehouse jobs
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Integrate automation and robotics to improve efficiency and worker safety
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Inaccurate analytics and modeling
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Lack of end-to-end visibility
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Meet customer OTIF (on time in full) requirements
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Changing delivery windows
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Long dwell times
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Sensitive inventories—the need for cold chain storage and traditional transportation
Why is the Retail Supply Chain So Complicated?
The Retail Calendar
The retail supply chain is one of the most consumer facing supply chains. Whereas consumers expect seasons from new cars, durable goods, even paint colors, consumers won’t wait for all-season goods. Consumers expect seasonal items such as clothing, holiday, and weather specific to be ready when they want them. The retail calendar controls everything and needs to scale for shopping events like back-to-school or Cyber Monday.
Logistics
With the changing calendar comes the massive logistic need to have raw materials on hand, to move goods from manufacturer, to warehouse, to store and sometimes between stores. Keeping track of product location, time of arrival, product quality in transport, and vendors is essential.
Data Drivers
Data drives retail from SKU management, inventory, sales, and logistics. Inaccurate data can cause stress anywhere in the system, effect forecasting and demand causing a domino failure effect.
Forecasting Failures
Inaccurate or bad data can lead to forecasting failures stressing retailers ultimately effecting buying and pricing decisions squeezed into already sensitive systems.
The Surgere Retail Supply Chain Solution
Until now, retail supply chain problems have been difficult to solve. Items for each retailer tend to vary in size, weight, count, packaging and pallet configuration. Creating a connected community willing to work together, to speak in the same data language, and for that data to be accurate and actionable would revolutionize retail and help ensure that out of stocks and food and household staples are always available to the customer in good and challenging times.
Surgere has solved the problem with a tested, scalable, and flexible supply chain management process based on IoT-sensor based technology that provides 99.9% data accuracy and fidelity, Surgere blockchain technology, and patented software secured by the Microsoft Azure Cloud.
The Surgere Solution
Interius™ SaaS Platform
The Autosphere backbone is Surgere’s patented Interius™ Software that is hosted on the secure Microsoft Azure cloud.
Interius provides a variety of solutions designed specifically for OEM and supplier needs.
Interius™ the SaaS Platform that Doesn’t Stress Your Software or Your Tech Teams
Interius™ has been designed to interface with existing software systems.
Interius can enable systems beyond current capabilities by enriching the existing data set. Additionally, Interius can act as the central node to bridge disparate systems across departments. When deployed, Interius naturally creates a symbiotic relationship to existing systems.
With Surgere’s standard API toolkit, it’s simple and easy to distribute data across systems. Surgere utilizes both REST and SOAP protocols with a JSON payload and encrypted and secure connections.
Surgere IoT-sensor Technology
Interius™ works with Surgere IoT-sensor technology. Our multiple forms of sensor technology, a catalog of certified RFID tags and other certified IoT sensors, create a complete map of your inventory with a 99.9% data accuracy and fidelity to identity and inform weaknesses and opportunities in real-time.
Surgere-certified Hardware
Interius™ and the IoT-sensor technology are delivered through Surgere-certified hardware.
Supply Chain Experts
The Surgere integrated solution is engineered, installed, and supported by supply chain experts, people with deep experience in the industry.
We understand that your supply chain is unique and often the product of a merger or acquisition, multiple layers of technology, outdated procedures, a diverse workforce, and changes in the world economy.
Our solutions continue to evolve, exceeding the needs of our customers for the supply chain they have today and the one they hope to have tomorrow.
