People, Process, Technology

Mark,

You make some excellent points in your Editorial Note. However, you could have expanded your argument to the more general case to state that no data capture system is "perfect", and that your argument is not confined to retail operations; yet the nature and precision of data relating to inventory (count, locations, additional meta-data) continues to increase, and the ease (degree of automation) and accuracy associated with such data capture exercises has improved dramatically this century as a result of multi-faceted technology innovations.

Lastly, never forger that there is always an essential need to strike the right balance in the people, process, technology mix that constitutes the implementation of any AIDC solution. What we observe is an increasing reliance on the technology component of this equation, but it would be foolish to ignore the requirement for rigorous processes, both as a matter of routine operations and of course exceptions handling.

Best regards,
Chris