JDA and SATO partner to deliver advanced warehouse management

JDA Software Group, and SATO have announced a new alliance representing JDA’s first Japanese hardware partnership as the company expands its presence in Japan.

The technology partnership will combine JDA Warehouse Management and JDA Warehouse Labor Management with SATO’s Visual Warehouse Solution to help customers take advantage of digitalization technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data. The sales alliance will streamline the logistics process for customers leveraging JDA and SATO’s solutions together. JDA and SATO aim to deploy the solution in five leading food and beverage companies by March 2019.

According to a release, Japanese companies are facing labor shortages and increasing supply chain complexity due to rising consumer demands which require diverse product lineups to meet their needs. Meanwhile, Japan ranks poorly among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations (18 of 35) in terms of overall workforce productivity, even as nominal labor productivity hit a new high this year, according to the Japan Productivity Center 2017 survey of workplace productivity.

According to Gartner’s 2015 report on big data usage, only 6% of large Japanese corporations utilize big data, and 48% have yet to identify how to extract value from it. A Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs 2015 whitepaper on future society driven by information and communication technology indicates that among Japanese manufacturers, only 45% utilize big data to drive operational efficiencies.

“SATO is proud to have been selected as a partner by a cutting-edge solutions provider like JDA,” said Kaz Matsuyama, president and CEO of SATO Holdings. “We hold a mutual commitment to open innovation and user-centric value, so I am excited about the possibilities of our collaboration. We will strive to bridge the last inch of our customers’ last mile challenges to design the ultra-efficient, IoT warehouse of the future.”

The SATO Visual Warehouse solution is a virtual warehouse director that streamlines picking route navigation for enhanced logistics and labor utilization. An accompanying picking guidance system guides workers on the shortest possible route, with audio and visual instructions, to cut time spent and distance traveled per picking order by approximately half. The system allows inexperienced warehouse workers to achieve a similar efficiency level as more experienced workers.

JDA and SATO seek to improve warehouse productivity by enabling actionable improvements based on data sets of real, specific operational data. By logging individual workers’ location over time, the combination of JDA and SATO will enable collection of real operational data. Accumulating this real-time data in the warehouse and linking it to JDA Warehouse Labor Management makes true visualization of labor possible, and empowers users to make data-driven decisions to streamline their operations, providing a 30% to 40% boost to operational productivity in the warehouse upon deployment.

“This partnership will tap into SATO’s real-time visualization and tagging technology to gather all information in the warehouse related to labor efficiency that will improve productivity and take advantage of the latest cutting-edge innovations,” said Amit Bagga, regional vice president, sales, Asia-Pacific, JDA. “As we expand our presence in Japan, we are best addressing Japanese customers’ demand, and leveraging SATO’s IoT capabilities, combined with JDA’s advanced warehouse management solutions.”