Any Lingering Concerns with WMS Cloud Response Times should Go Away when 5G is Ready

There continues to be strong adoption of Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) in the Cloud.

Supply Chain Digest Says... With eventual mainstreaming of 5G technology, concerns about latency about WMS in the Cloud should simply disappear. What do you say? Click here to send us your comments Click here to see reader feedback

But some companies remained concerned that response times for processes such mobile radio frequency (RF) communication, Voice technology, and materials handling systems will not keep up with the well under one second level that is required by these processes.

Such concerns today seem overblown, with now a large number of WMS solutions successfully deployed in the Cloud with little to no response time issues.

And that success has been achieved using traditional wireless technology (Wi-Fi). The market is now on the verge of what is expected to be a revolution in wireless speeds with the advent of so-called “5G” technology delivered via cellular networks.

And a proof point of sorts was achieved last week, as AT&T announced it had successfully completed a first milestone toward proving the capabilities of its 5G network solution to enable “smart warehouse” applications for the Department of Defense’s Naval Base Coronado in San Diego.

In a press release clearly it would it seem written by an engineer not a logistics professional, AT&T said its 5G network solution demonstrated impressive data throughput speeds greater than 4 gigabits per second with less than 10 milliseconds of latency using AT&T 5G spectrum and supporting sub-systems.

These speeds were achieved using commercially available commodity mobile devices at a testbed facility in Richardson, Texas.

This latest test stemmed from $600 million in awards the Department of Defense (DOD) announced in October of 2020 for 5G experimentation and testing at five US military test sites, representing the largest full-scale 5G tests in the world.

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Next up: AT&T will deliver its 5G technology across the 120,000 square foot Naval Base Coronado warehouse. The company said this new high speed wireless network will efficiently and securely connect smart warehouse application infrastructure to provide high-speed, low-latency 5G connectivity for many distribution applications, including autonomous mobile robots, video cameras, Internet of Things (IoT), and AR/VR (augmented reality/virtual reality) systems that will enable inventory tracking, transshipment and other elements of DOD’s objectives for the test.

Following successful completion of that stage of the test, AT&T 5G is expected to be integrated with actual Navy IT systems to enable smart warehouse capabilities.

Other wireless technology companies are working with the DoD on similar tests at other warehouses, including GE and partner Verizon.

“AT&T 5G demonstrated data throughput speeds of more than 4 gigabits per second on commodity mobile user equipment, far surpassing the data throughput speeds DOD has seen in other tests,” the press release quotes Lance Spencer, Client Executive Vice President at the company as saying.

With eventual mainstreaming of 5G technology, concerns about latency about WMS in the Cloud should simply disappear.

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