My biggest frustration running our logistics operations isn't
that I can't fix the problems, it's when I don't know about
the problems.
We have four large warehouses and 100 retail stores. Some of
these places I've never been to at all.
This vuzop tool enables me to see our system transactions and
workflow alongside camera views and sensor data across all our
facilities. With that, the intuition that I have from years of
experience can quickly spot problems that other people don't
recognize early enough or take seriously enough.
So yesterday, when I was looking at Dallas, something seemed a
little off.
So I added a data view and saw that the shipments to one of our
regions were very sporadic - something wasn't right with the
NorthWest.
I went into the warehouse through one of our cameras, and saw
shipments for other regions going out at regular intervals, but for the
northwest, they were all just sitting there for awhile, and then
seeming to go out all bunched together.
So I switched to a camera in the Sacramento warehouse and
didn't see anything like that going on.
Next I went to back to Dallas. I looked up at the Halo command
center to see the running receiving and shipment streams which seemed
to be scrolling along and blinking pretty normally.
Then I decided to spotcheck some trucks leaving the warehouse for
the Northwest region.
Looking at one of those loads I could see the contents looked
normal enough. I jumped inside the cab and nothing unusal there either.
Truck and driver both in good shape.
I thought maybe I should take a look at some drone footage from
outside the warehouse around this time, so I took a second to look at
that, but again, everything was looking pretty normal.
So I decided to see if there was any unusual sales activity in
that region.
I switched to the streaming store point of sale view for the
NorthWest and it looked like a normal pace and pattern of sales.
So next I decided to look at the workflow for orders and
shipments. Here I can see each order as it progresses through the
workflow for our ordering and fulfillment processes.
Just looking at our BPM workflow model, I had a suspicion about
the Release Shipment activity so I decided to add another data view by
region.
And now the problem was obvious. Way too many orders were being
routed to the Regional Director for approval - just for this region.
This had become a bottleneck.
I captured a video of what I saw and emailed it to the director
and gave him a call - got the fix started.
By combining animated models of our live workflow with real
images and sensor data, it is very easy for me to identify and
investigate problems and opportunities. Then I can easily contact the
right person and share what I've seen.
I hope that little story gave you an idea of how Vuzop could help
you. Here's how it works.
Vuzop brings together three sources of information. Your
corporate IT systems, using their transaction and workflow data.
Streaming video camera images from your network of cameras. And
streaming data feeds from your internet of things devices.
All this can be viewed with a VR headset, on a Windows desktop or
on a mobile VR device.
Our vision is that new technologies expand the ability to monitor
and control large organizations. By using natural animations of
real-time operations combined with camera views and internet of things
data, executives can share their experience and intuition throughout
the business on a scale previously unimaginable.