08.22.18 -- Order Management: The Backbone Of Omni-Channel

We're moving rapidly toward an all-out revolution at the POS: A throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater, wholesale rip-and-replace of the transaction systems we've known since the advents of POS, ERP (enterprise resource planning), and e-commerce.

Online shopping has put tremendous pressure on brick-and-mortar retailers, causing large numbers of locations to go out of business. But lest anyone think retail is shrinking, the opposite is actually true.

Today we hear a lot about the Amazon Effect and its popular two-day shipping policy, but what we don't hear is how companies are keeping up with this instant-everything expectation and how warehouse automation affects shipping outcomes. Whether it's shipping automation or packaging, every process plays its role in today's top goals of decreasing costs, improving efficiencies, and impressing customers.

The explosion in e-commerce sales — growing at three times the rate of total retail sales per Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium — is creating several new challenges for retailers, from order fulfillment to returns processing. Batch and wave picking have greatly improved the effectiveness of picking operations by reducing workers' travel time and increasing throughput. However, once items have been picked, they must then be sorted to individual orders or replenishments. Enter the put wall system.

While challenges are significant and may take time to resolve, retail stands to be greatly improved by the application of blockchain technology. Particular security concerns such as the risks associated with operating centralized databases, the risk of third parties counterfeiting branded goods, and supply-chain opacity all have an answer in blockchain technology. Looking further into supply chain, it can also help to resolve incompatible databases across different supply-chain nodes.