inVia Robotics Inc. announced today that it has upgraded its digital twin technology with the release of Twin IQ. This simulation tool, specially developed for warehouse settings, enhances the ability of operators to plan and optimize their fulfillment processes, the company claimed.
The following new features are part of inVia’s new offering:
- Twin IQ is a Web-based simulation tool that allows users to simulate different warehouse operations and workflows to optimize performance.
- The simulation includes numerous aspects of warehouse operations, including human behaviors, machine errors, and inventory levels, based on real-world data.
- It supports strategic decision-making capabilities by automating routine tasks and providing managers with insights on inventory management, order fulfillment, workforce optimization, and more.
- Real-time simulation of workflows, inventory locations, staffing levels, etc., can help answer “what if” questions and identify areas for improvement.
Twin IQ builds upon inVia’s digital twin offering, incorporating artificial intelligence “to provide unparalleled efficiency and accuracy in warehouse optimization,” said the company.
AI and digital twins promise to ease decision making
Businesses can create digital twins of their physical warehouses and then simulate different scenarios to find the best layouts, workflows, and automation solutions in minutes, inVia added. This promises to enable continuous improvement and efficient decision-making, it said.
inVia said that its simulation tool can benefit the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
- Throughput/productivity: Simulating different workflows and scenarios allows the warehouse manager to identify opportunities to increase throughput.
- Order fulfillment/SLA compliance: Simulation helps analyze how changes may affect the ability to meet promised delivery timelines and service-level agreements (SLAs).
- Inventory management: Simulating inventory placement and replenishment strategies can help optimize inventory levels and availability.
- Labor efficiency: Changes to workflows and automation introduction can be modeled to understand their effects on staff utilization and productivity.
- Eliminate bottlenecks: Simulation aids in proactively identifying potential bottlenecks before they harm operations.
Twin IQ optimizes warehouse workflow in simulation
“Twin IQ is a simulation technology tailored for warehouses, reducing setup time while focusing on the data and processes crucial for optimization,” said Lior Elazary, co-founder and CEO of inVia Robotics. “It accurately replicates real-life fulfillment scenarios, including mistakes typically overlooked by traditional simulations, allowing for workflow adjustments to meet fulfillment deadlines.”
Elazary shared some of the capabilities that he believes simulation provides to warehouse operators:
- The ability to test “what if” scenarios and potential workflow changes without disrupting live operations.
- More accurate results compared with traditional simulations that make assumptions, since inVia said its simulation accounts for real human and machine behaviors.
- Identification of bottlenecks and areas for improvement that may not be obvious otherwise.
- Evaluation of different strategies like inventory placement, staffing levels, and automation introduction before implementing changes.
- Opportunity to optimize workflows in real time to continuously improve warehouse performance.
The capabilities of Twin IQ and simulation aren’t new to inVia. The company said it has helped customers optimize their warehouses since it started in 2015, albeit with inVia customer success managers.
Since that time, inVia has continued to invest in the capabilities of simulation, while also making it more user-friendly. The new Twin IQ tool is now fully released, Web-based, and available for customers to use on their own from their dashboards.
“Twin IQ is a simulation technology tailored for warehouses, reducing setup time while focusing on the data and processes crucial for optimization,” asserted Elazary. “It accurately replicates real-life fulfillment scenarios, including mistakes typically overlooked by traditional simulations, allowing for workflow adjustments to meet fulfillment deadlines.”
With Twin IQ, he added, “customers can simulate, figure out what to optimize, implement changes, and then continue to iterate. They can make small tweaks or sometimes larger tweaks, to test and validate the impact of a change before making the change in the physical warehouse. We believe this is the future of warehouses and warehouses managers.”
Customers like the ‘what if’ opportunities
“Assessing warehouse efficiency used to consume weeks, even months, of our time and resources,” recalled Michael Huffaker, chief operating officer at CarParts.com. “We’d deploy teams of engineers, gather data, and analyze operations extensively to identify areas for improvement.”
“Now, with a few clicks, we can simulate scenarios, conduct thorough analyses, and pinpoint optimization opportunities in just minutes,” he said. “Using Twin IQ to optimize post-deployment operations has been a breakthrough for CarParts.com. Directly comparing scenarios to our current warehouse operations yields invaluable insights for continuous improvement.”
Twin IQ intelligent simulation integrates with inVia Robotics’s automation suite, including the inVia Logic software and inVia PickerWall robots. The company said it can ” deliver an end-to-end fulfillment optimization platform that leaves no aspect of operations untouched.”
inVia is a 2021 RBR50 award winner for its Picker Wall system intended to help consolidate orders in the warehouse.