DCSOLUTIONS [ IN PRACTICE ]
GNC’s Inventory Takes Flight
THE CUSTOMER GNC is a multinational retail and nutritional manufacturing company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It specializes in health and nutrition related products, including vitamins, supplements, minerals, herbs, sports nutrition, and diet and energy products. THE PROVIDER Corvus Robotics sells AI-driven robotics, software, and data- driven insights to companies and governments as a better way of providing inventory visibility across the material flow. by Karen Kroll
GNC, a leading health and wellness brand, was looking to streamline its system for conducting physical inventories. Because the system was largely manual, and given the number of employees and the amount of equipment required for each inventory session, GNC would complete only several full cycle counts each year.
reach each item, employees sometimes used material handling equipment. The challenge? This equipment also was needed for customer operations, and shifting it to the audit team could impact how quickly customer orders were lled. “There was always a con ict between who was able to get the equipment and who wasn’t,” says Bill Monk, vice president of distribution. Given both the human and material handling equipment resources required, full cycle counts were completed between two and four times annually. COMPLEX INVENTORY MANAGEMENT Inventory management for perishable products is generally more complicated than it is for nonperishable ones, says Jackie Wu, founding chief executive of cer with Corvus Robotics. There are stricter rules and regulations for traceability purposes, and these rules also differ based on the country. The regulations are intended to ensure product quality, safety, and public health. Moreover, many companies that offer perishable and edible products face more
To streamline the process and enable more frequent and accurate inventories, GNC implemented an Autonomous Inventory Management System from Corvus Robotics. This solution uses drones to automate cycle counts, freeing labor and equipment and boosting ef ciency and accuracy. From its start as a single store in 1935, GNC has expanded across the globe. It operates a mix of company-owned retail locations, domestic and international franchise locations, digital commerce, and wholesale and retail partnerships, with a product lineup that ranges from apple cider vinegar to jojoba oil to turmeric caplets. Two distribution centers, one in Arizona and one in Indiana, support GNC’s retail, wholesale, international and ecommerce businesses. Between them, the two facilities house 40,000 bin locations that need to be regularly inventoried. Prior to GNC’s partnership with Corvus Robotics, taking a physical inventory required teams of employees who manually counted all products. To physically
September 2025 • Inbound Logistics 85
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