Internet of Things driven Inventory Management for the Retail Pharmacies

Abstract

The technological transformation has resulted in a massive change in businesses around the world. Inventory management, which an essential part of every business, has also been impacted a lot. Inventory management is a subset of the broader Supply Chain Management (SCM) and mainly aims at achieving customer demands by storing products and managing inventory levels. Internet of Things (IoT) has become a hot topic these days, and the paper's fundamental objective is to examine the importance of IoT and how can it be beneficial in managing the inventory of the retail, pharmaceutical sector. A brief analysis of the existing inventory management practices carried out by the retail pharmacies in the Cachar district of Assam was conducted to analyze the present scenario and the problems encountered by the pharmacists in managing their stocks. The paper then discusses the potential benefits of adopting a smart inventory management system for controlling their inventory levels so that they prevent losing customers due to a shortage of medicines. A conceptual framework for implementing an IoT based inventory management in the retail pharmacies has been proposed which can prove to be beneficial in providing real-time transparency and give practical guidelines for the retail pharmacies that are using the traditional approaches.