Ryder System, Inc. announced the successful transformation of Ryder smart warehouses in the Miami, Dallas, and Chicago markets. These transformed warehouses – or showcase sites – deliver advanced automation, flexible and instantly scalable operations, real-time visibility, and a customer-centric experience. The warehouses, established for three leading global consumer brands, bring together innovative startup technologies and smart capabilities customized to optimize operations and best serve customer needs. Ryder has identified the technology below as definitive benchmarks of an effective smart warehouse, and each area of innovation is already delivering significant improvements for customers: Robotics – The implementation of robotics throughout a Ryder-managed warehouse produced a 25% increase in productivity and 20% operating savings, simply by reducing travel time in the warehouse, which can account for 30 % of an employee’s shift. Drones – At a Ryder customer warehouse, drones successfully scanned pallets and locations in 20 minutes, compared to a manual scan which took 90 minutes. Additionally, a cycle count on the entire warehouse took just three hours versus two days. The drone can also identify available pallet locations and verify product placement. Sensors – Identification tools provide real-time asset location and enable performance management. When implemented throughout a Ryder facility, productivity and cost savings increased more than 25%. Wearables – When Ryder deployed smart glasses at a customer warehouse to improve picking processes, the time it took to pick and scan inventory decreased by five to seven seconds per item and improved efficiency by 33%.