Warehouses are one of the most crucial links in sustaining a global supply chain. Without a well-stocked and managed warehouse, consumers would not have access to the products they need to purchase in stores or online. The key to ensuring these warehouses run smoothly is maintaining constant inventory records. For example, when a large brand needs to ship a crate of items to Amazon, they must know exactly what is in the crate, how many crates need to be shipped, and to which fulfillment centers the crates should be distributed. This information is shared with the warehouse, which then needs to keep track of everything to fulfill “eaches” — individual orders placed for an item within each crate. At the same time, the original company needs to know exactly what has been sold to determine when to replenish items in the warehouse.

It is a complicated and time-consuming process. For the most part, it requires a team of people to be constantly going through aisles of warehouse shelving to scan SKUs (Stock-Keeping Units) on cases and eaches. This amounts to thousands of SKUs daily. If a SKU is missed, it can result in a backup in the supply chain, greatly impacting a company’s reputation and profit margin. Many warehouses have begun using AI programs to coordinate the data collected in a time-sensitive manner. However, this still doesn’t alleviate the burden of having to physically collect the data. In August 2024, Nokia and Ikea announced that they would be turning to drone technology to facilitate warehouse inventory management.

As explained in a press release from Nokia, today’s warehouse operations are challenged by inaccurate records and wasted time, money, and labor efforts that go into the constant data collection cycles. With advancements in drone technology, safety, and regulations, these autonomous tools can tackle the challenges that are causing warehouses to be less efficient. The company’s new program is called the Nokia Autonomous Inventory Monitoring Service (AIMS). The press release states that AIMS “enables cost-effective, efficient, and accurate inventory monitoring using smart, autonomous drones. With the industry-first, true inventory counting capability, drones can individually count items such as eaches, cases, or cartons. Detailed, up-to-date inventory analytics reduce low-value manual labor and transform productivity and efficiency. Nokia AIMS helps customers improve overall efficiency with an expected 30-40 percent return on investment (ROI).”

Nokia is positioning the AIMS program as a third-party service, making the technology available to other customers to maintain their warehouses. It is a complete solution that includes everything from drone hardware and software to a secure cloud-based user interface. Ikea’s platform is not much different and has been undergoing rigorous testing for more than a year at the Winterslag, Belgium, Distribution Center. Now, with a proven, safe system, Ikea is ready to roll out inventory drones throughout warehouses in Europe and North America.

Ikea initially began using drones to collect inventory data in 2021. Thanks to improvements in hardware and AI capabilities, Ikea’s drones will now be operational 24 hours a day. This means that the drones will work alongside human employees, whereas previously they could only be used at night when warehouse employees weren’t on the floor. Ikea’s Global CDO for Retail, Parag Parekh, explained, “The IKEA drones use an artificial intelligence-based algorithm to identify and photograph product storage locations. In addition, drone flights are pre-scheduled, utilizing a custom indoor positioning system to navigate higher levels of storage locations (for levels 3 and up). Equipped with obstacle detection capabilities, these drones can avoid collisions by rerouting their paths.”

Ikea’s program will be placing 250 drones within 73 global warehouses working 24 hours a day. Meanwhile, Nokia’s AIMS service is available to any third-party warehouse distribution center immediately. “With it,” AIMS General Manager Paul Heitlinger said, “customers can not only gain peace of mind as our drones are designed to work while customers sleep but also free up human workers for high-value tasks that make a difference for their businesses.” Nokia goes on to say, “One day, all warehouse management solutions will work this way.” Ikea and Nokia are proving to the world that warehouse management can be streamlined with drone technology. They are embracing the future of drone capabilities today for an efficient tomorrow.

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