On my first day at Skinner Nurseries I was told, “You’re going to wish you’d reported to work one week later.”
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“Why?” I asked.
“We’re doing physical inventory this Friday.”
Sure enough, that day the whole staff worked well into the night to reconcile our inventory counts. By the time I headed home I felt like The Count from
“One, one 15-gallon ‘
Having accurate inventory counts is vital. How can you sell your products if you don’t know how many you have? And the numbers in your computer will invariably, on occasion, differ from what you actually have on hand.
So a physical inventory count is necessary on a periodic basis to double-check your numbers. It’s labor intensive and about as exciting as stuffing envelopes.
Technology to the rescue
The invention of radio-frequency identification tags gave hope to the nursery industry. These RFID tags, already put to use by the military and myriad other industries, store information that can be transmitted to an electronic reader. So in theory you could put RFID tags on all the products at your nursery, push a button and instantly get an accurate inventory count.
But there’s a problem. Due to privacy issues there’s a limited distance over which the RFID tags can communicate with the readers. The
So, for a nursery, this means you’d need expensive readers placed every 50 or 100 feet. The whole thing suddenly loses its economic feasibility.
But let’s not give up on RFID tags just yet. At a trade show last summer I met with some folks who might have the solution.
Why not make the reader mobile? Why not mount it on a little robotic rover that, via a GPS system, can travel the nursery rows and read all the RFID tags? You could cut the thing loose at closing time and by morning you should have accurate inventory numbers.
As an added bonus, the RFID system could also speed your checkout time. You’d be able to point a reader at a customer’s trailer and instantly tell what products he was buying.
Yes, this sounds like Buck Rogers, but all the technology already exists. In fact, prototypes are already being tested in nursery settings.
It could work
Yes, there are some hurdles. This system, at least initially, might not be suited for B&B tree growers. These nurseries need to know not only counts, but caliper sizes.
Robot-mounted lasers that read trunk calipers have been tested in the past, but with limited success. You try to teach a robot the difference between a tree trunk and a tree stake. But eventually, who knows.
There’s also the issue of the tags themselves. What if one falls off a plant and goes down a crack in the dirt? Would the robot be constantly counting plants that weren’t actually there?
This might be rectified if the RFID system was paired with some type of mapping software. Then you could find rogue tags, in addition to having a better time locating and consolidating your products.
So maybe a perfect system is under development. Keeping an accurate inventory count could soon be accomplished with much less time and labor.
At least until you run over the rover with your tractor.
“Droids for hire”
There’s no need for a W-2.
Lateness and sick days are few.
No vacations to take,
Just a daily oil break,
When the employee is R2D2.
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- Todd Davis
Todd Davis is branch manager, Skinner Nurseries, Garland,