IKEA’s Journey with Warehouse Drones

“Flying drones in a warehouse? But why?” I was instinctively skeptical when I first heard of drone startup Verity’s idea to fly drones in industrial warehouses. A few years later, more than a hundred Verity drones fly in IKEA’s warehouses worldwide. Here’s the lesson I learned.

See also: Netland, Maghazei & Lewis, A better way to pilot emerging technologies, MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer 2023, p. 5-7
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Just-in-time: only for stable times?

Motivated by many media articles warning against JIT as the culprit for supply chain disruptions, the POMS College of Operational Excellence organized the webinar “Just-in-time or Just-in-case” in February 2022. Extending this online debate, five participants co-authored an article intending to provide advice for future research into JIT. After peer-review, the article “Just-in-time for supply chains in turbulent times” is now published open-access in Production and Operations Management.

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Lean and the Corona pandemic: A clarification

Due to the Corona pandemic, critical supply chain shortages have occurred. Many have looked for the problem and pointed at the Just-In-time principle of Lean as one of the evils. This calls for clarification. Lean is not to blame, but part of the solution.

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