Cannabis business owners are striving to streamline current processes and even establish new goals in an industry where change is the only constant.
Although valuable workers continue to work on the front lines of retail stores and cultivation facilities every day, it is frequently more practical to delegate certain activities to computers, sensors, and cellphones, such as the daily collection and correlation of millions of data points. Additionally, neither you nor your staff members’ primary expertise is usually data collection or management. Nevertheless, every element in a cultivation or retail process generates large amounts of data, which could take a human day or even weeks to analyze and use.
The Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning are examples of smart technologies that can be used in this situation. IoT is now widely used in manufacturing to track equipment production and performance. Similarly to this, utility firms are introducing sensing technologies to the grid in an effort to balance supply and demand and spot potential outages early on. Similar technologies could revolutionize the cannabis sector.
The key to significant efficiency benefits and new business insights has been the integration of sensors and systems from every aspect of a company, including operations, physical security, and building infrastructure. As a result, integrating IoT technology has not only become an essential corporate strategy but also a starting point for a journey toward digital transformation. In this blog, we will understand how IoT keeps the cannabis industry connected.
What Is IoT?
The Internet of Things, or IoT for short, is a network of numerous sensors, gadgets, programs, applications, and other technologies that communicate with one another and exchange data across networks like the Internet.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a networked ecosystem of physical objects that are equipped with the ability to communicate, comprehend, and cooperate with other nearby linked technologies.
Role Of IoT In Retail
There are many possibilities in the cannabis industry. Real-time tracking technology, more individualized marketing and purchasing, and improved supply chain management are a few examples of ways that cannabis businesses could employ these innovations. Cannabis retailers are beginning to personalize what they offer their customers with the use of IoT-driven intelligence.
At the retailer stage, IoT is becoming increasingly important for compliance and for gathering information about customers. IoT technologies have a significant role in the overall retail business. By 2025, this market area might generate $94 billion in profits.
IoT-connected devices may prove to be an excellent strategy for retailers to maintain a system of compliance and transparency. Particularly with regard to increasing goods like cannabis plants, their byproducts, and their finished products, RFIDs provide security and real-time information. It also saves the manufacturer and seller money on labor costs associated with compliance because it can read a lot of tags (items) quickly without the physical link needed by conventional barcodes.
Cannabis producers, distributors, and sellers seem to be implementing sensors like near-field communication (NFC) tags and radio frequency identification (RFID) more frequently.
IoT Keeps The Cannabis Industry Connected
Here is how IoT keeps the cannabis Industry connected:
Centralized System Promotes Safety And Compliance
Every region, state, country, and territory has its own set of rules and laws. And creating a centralized system that all connected devices can access is one strategy to ensure accuracy in cannabis cultivation, extraction, packaging, and supply.
IoT Keeps Businesses Compliant
Age restrictions and driving while impaired are typically brought up when discussing cannabis legislation, but government compliance is much more complicated, particularly for businesses that manufacture food products with cannabis additives. And here’s the bothersome part for those who must (and should) maintain a food safety plan: facilities are required to be able to document changes to procedures, recipes, and hazard controls every time a rule is modified. It quickly becomes challenging, especially if all the documentation is maintained manually.
The optimum way for food manufacturers to streamline and automate a variety of paperwork and food safety tasks is with a central, connected IoT system, which may culminate in thousands of dollars saved over months or years.
IoT Enhances Collaboration
The cannabis sector is implementing new intelligent growing and harvesting systems. The cloud connects sensors, lighting, climatic controls, soil health, and more to track every stage of product development. Furthermore, efforts to increase and improve cannabinoid extraction from plants, known as biosynthesis, use cutting-edge technology to reduce production costs, raise product quality, and lower the price of cannabis goods.
Technology has long been utilized in logistics to manage inventory and product distribution. The cannabis sector has fully embraced these logistical tools, from drone surveillance to intelligent inventory and shipping procedures. Harvesting activities are even connected to production and distribution to forecast product flow and anticipate any shortages before they occur.
In order to measure growth and mobility during the entire growth and harvesting operation, sensors and AI gather data from worker movement and interactions with product and growth operations.
Workers are protected by digital safety mechanisms, which also gather information on manufacturing and growth processes to improve collaboration and decision-making. Mobile apps enhance measurements, inventories, product inspections, and more. Managers can use apps to monitor traffic, material delivery, growth patterns, site conditions, and other things while keeping an eye on every batch of plants and every employee in real time.
Wrapping Up
There are many benefits to having your systems and products connected to the Internet of Things, regardless of whether you work in the cannabis industry as a grower, dispensary, food manufacturer, or in another capacity. Which direction will you choose?
