Warehouse inventory management is a complex process. When inventory includes perishables, the complexity of these processes is compounded with additional requirements such as appropriate ambient storage conditions and placement of one type of perishable (e.g., bananas) far away from another type of perishable (e.g., strawberries). Drone-based warehouse inventory management is gaining popularity, as seen in the increasing number of firms in this space as well as the number of research publications. While drones have been successfully used in warehouses with non-perishables, RFID and drone use in warehouses with perishables has not witnessed its fair share as evidenced by the lack of research in this general area. A new study by Turner College associate professor of management information systems Yoon Lee and coauthors Gaurav Kapoor and Riyaz Sikora of the University of Texas at Arlington, and Selwyn Piramuthu of the University of Florida, utilizes analytical and simulation models to show that drone-based perishable inventory management is more efficient than manual perishable inventory management. "First, we adopt the Hotelling location model and built an analytical model. In addition, we created a simulation analysis model to show the practical applicability of our model. Results from our analytical model and simulation analysis indicate that such warehouse automation is beneficial to both the warehouse operators and their customers," Lee explained. The new study is set to appear in a future issue of International Journal of Production Economics, a high-quality journal that focuses on topics treating the interface between engineering and management. The journal is interdisciplinary in nature, considering whole cycles of activities, such as the product life cycle - research, design, development, test, launch, disposal - and the material flow cycle - supply, production, distribution.
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