19 February 2025
AI, drones, and e-commerce technology advancements, increasingly global supply chains, and today's instant delivery expectations are changing the way businesses manage their inventory. To meet and exceed customer expectations and effectively control costs, business leaders must constantly improve the tracking and accounting of product at physical locations to ensure counts are synchronized across e-commerce sites, backend warehouse management, and accounting systems. It is becoming increasingly critical for revenue growth and cost management for any retail, manufacturing, or fulfillment business, that inventory optimization is achieved through accurate forecasting, inventory cycle counts, and removing manual processes from the work of warehouse and logistics staff.
One recent publicly listed company, ZenaTech, and its subsidiary ZenaDrone are set to lead the charge for this innovation. Their indoor self-flying or autonomous drones are transforming the inventory management and stocktake process by doing more accurate full physical counts of inventory as frequently as on an hourly basis. They are also changing the face of decision-making and planning particularly for "available-to-promise" (ATP) or "capable-to-promise" (CTP) forecasting and leveraging machine learning and predictive tools to automate and bring accuracy that can further improve the entire process.
Inventory carrying costs (ICC) are so important for any business to manage as they can eat significantly into the bottom line. Not just the actual product or material storage, but the associated handling costs, insurance, taxes, shrinkage, depreciation — and the opportunity cost of having capital tied up in inventory. It is easy to see how quickly the costs of holding and storing unsold or work-in-process goods add up.
AI self-flying or autonomous drones are a modern way to help reduce ICC, while also improving inventory management, stocktaking, and verifying the physical goods in your warehouse or storage facility, they also minimize labor costs.
This is one company to watch that addresses these problems directly and has a great future ahead.
Upgrade and Innovate Inventory Systems
ZenaTech's ZenaDrone has developed the new IQ Nano, a 10'x10' drone designed to perform regular and frequent inspections including bar code or RFID scanning, facility maintenance inspections, security monitoring, 3D indoor mapping and other applications in a warehouse or distribution facility.
The IQ Nano is designed for autonomous use with integrated sensors, high-quality cameras, data collection and analysis, and AI capabilities. Weighing just 3.3 pounds and with a flight time of up to 20 minutes before autonomously touching down and recharging using its automatic battery charging station, the IQ Nano is designed for hovering stability and safety, thanks to its built-in obstacle avoidance capabilities.
"The IQ Nano is a breakthrough technology that dramatically reduces the burden of inventory management in terms of both labor and cost," said ZenaTech CEO Shaun Passley, Ph.D. "This dramatically improves decision-making and efficient operations by being able to assess and manage physical inventory cost-effectively by the hour instead of once every quarter, as is often done. This easily results in inventory cost savings in millions of dollars per year for multi-warehouse facility customers."
Transform Warehouse Processes for a Single Facility or a Network
Inventory management has become increasingly complex due to global facilities, information, and supply chains. According to Forrester research, omnichannel fulfillment across multiple stores, sales channels, and online marketplaces is a high or top priority for 94% of retailers. Ultimately, this is a much larger network than many traditional inventory management systems were designed to track and manage.
By adopting ZenaTech's ZenaDrone solutions, warehouse facilities can improve their operations and more easily account for inventory in addition to optimizing costs, compliance, and financial reporting:
• Reduce costs and eliminate manual processes: Move from occasional or regular quarterly/annual stocktakes, to continuous inventory data, ensuring more accuracy and efficiency across the enterprise. This will boost productivity and cost reduction by eliminating the need for time-consuming and tedious manual counts.
• Improve safety in the warehouse: Drones can reduce the need to climb up ladders and reach top shelves or other hard-to-reach areas, dramatically reducing safety issues and improving safety compliance.
• Improve inventory carrying costs: Better accuracy knowing what is sitting in inventory or work-in-process for better decision making to lower overall inventory costs.
• Instant identification of misplaced items: Swiftly identify and rectify misplaced pallets, boxes, and SKUs, streamlining picking, replenishment, and shipment processes.
• Optimized goods tracking: Always know the exact location of goods, minimizing search times and maximizing resource utilization plus synchronizing with accounting systems.
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