Barcoding News

The transition to a mobile experience in retail and consumer-focused applications has ushered in a range of new hardware to support these new demands. Even though the focus has been towards retail environments, manufacturing and warehouse facilities have been finding ways to improve efficiency with these new mobile technologies.

Shipping/receiving and inventory are two applications that have taken advantage of the wide range of mobile printers currently available to improve performance and accuracy. In a warehouse environment, employees are constantly on-the-go and being able to print labels when an order is picked or stock is put away saves time from being tied to a fixed print station. With on-demand label printing, employees will have an increase in efficiency and better control of production.

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Many food packaging and repackaging businesses have a need to find a packaging label that has an adhesive suitable for indirect food contact.  Most importantly these business need a labeling solution that meets Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for indirect food contact.   Indirect food contact is defined as a substance that may come into interaction with food as part of packaging or processing equipment, but are not intentionally added directly to the food. Using a label that doesn’t meet food contact requirements can potentially lead to contaminated food, product returns and fines for having unapproved adhesives used in a food application.

Zebra manufactures several sizes and types of labels that have an adhesive formulation developed to meet FDA regulation 175.105, indirect food contact (see this list for FDA approved labels).  These labels are approved to be used for indirect contact food applications such as, label food in a retail location to large scale packaging of food from a manufacturing facility.

Avoid the hassle and expense of using non-food approved labels by introducing Zebra labels, which meet FDA regulation 175.105 for indirect food contact, into your food application today.

Contact your dedicated BarcodesInc representative today, for more information.

With the introduction of NFC, RFID has become a trendy technology, but is it really a necessity for your business? Let’s go over some of the differences between barcodes and RFID:

• Line of Sight – Rather than using light to collect or read a number from a barcode, radio waves are used to read a number from the RFID tag. Therefore, RFID does not require a line of sight to operate, but rather you can wave the RFID reader to read the tags.
• Multiple Item Scanning – Since RFID does not require line of sight it is not necessary to present each tag to the reader separately (as is required for barcodes); instead, all tags within the range of the reader can be read almost simultaneously as they pass the reader.
• Automation & Accuracy – Barcodes require a person to manually read each individual barcode, which can lead to manual read errors and mis-scanning. RFID, on the other hand, is a fully automated solution with a higher accuracy rate.

Although there is a huge savings in RFID technology from a resource, time and accuracy standpoint, we rarely recommend a business migrating from a completely manual process to a RFID solution. Companies that currently incorporate barcodes face the best return on investment from a RFID solution. Talk to one of our experts today to get a full assessment of your business.

Barcode labels come in a variety of types and materials to meet the needs of a range of applications. From a temporary shipping label to a rugged asset tag that needs to endure the challenges of outdoor use, there are labels that can meet these needs.

Knowing what type of label you are using is almost impossible to tell from just looking at it but there are a few key tests you can conduct to figure out what type and material your label is. Following these steps you can be assured you order the same label your application needs.

1. Try to tear the label in half

If you can tear the label in half we know right away that it’s a paper stock as opposed to a synthetic material like polypropylene or polyester.  Synthetic materials may stretch and deform a bit but will not be tear-able by hand.
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Specifically driven by the use of mobile devices, 2D barcodes have emerged from the realm of high cost, speciality applications to everyday uses like retail couponing, event ticketing, and advertising. Historically, the choice between a traditional 1D laser scanner or 2D imager was primarily driven by the large cost and performance difference. Jump to today and 2D imagers have made drastic technological improvements which have brought down cost and improved overall performance beyond laser scanners on all types of barcodes.

For many businesses the decision to go with a full 2D imager is still based around cost despite the improvements and added capabilities they can provide. This is where the new Honeywell Voyager 1452g is the perfect solution for any business that may be on the fence about 2D imaging.  All of the units are technically imagers but some are available with a 1D barcode only  scanning option at a significant lower cost. These units can later be upgraded (firmware update) to enable full 2D capabilities when needed.

This flexibility makes the Voyager 1452g an exceptional value for businesses that require the versatility of area-imaging technology today or may need it in the future.

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In today’s mobile-centric world, having reliable and secure wireless connectivity is expected from every business. From employees to customers, the vast majority of computing is done on mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets which require a robust network capable of providing constant connectivity.

The greatest challenge most small and mid-sized business faced in the past was the costs involved in providing an effective wireless network. In the past, this caused many businesses to compromise the performance and security of their network for cost savings.

Lucky for all of us, Zebra’s WiNG Express product line provides high WLAN performance and advanced security features normally found in enterprise-level applications at a fraction of the cost and time to deploy. Simply power up your access points and they will automatically be discovered and provisioned with pre-defined configurations you then easily manage from an intuitive and simple-to-grasp interface.

With WiNG Express you can provide your business with the wireless network it needs today and into the future without making any compromises.

1. Introduction

As a small and medium size business that fulfills and ships orders for customers, the “Picking  Process”, if it is not already, will consume more  resources than any other area of your fulfillment operation. Whether you know it or not, you do already have a picking process, even if it is just  the daily ritual of taking the day’s orders and  walking out into the garage to find the items you  need to ship.

The question is, are you going to be comfortable  using that process as you grow and have confidence that you will achieve the most important objective which impacts your customers – accuracy?

Will the process that works for you now with  thirty orders per day still make sense when you  have one hundred thirty orders per day? What  about a thousand? If you are banking on your  own business success in the future, then the answer to that question has to be “No”. Yes?

Now that you know that: 1. Picking is going to  be a huge part of your business in terms of resources and customer impact and 2. Your existing process isn’t going to cut it as you grow.  What are you going to do about it?

Continue reading to learn more about some of  your options and the benefits of being pro-active about constantly evolving tools, technology  and processes – your business depends on it!

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For today’s highly connected retail shopper, having access to the same range of information they experience online is more and more expected even during the brick and mortar shopping experience. Smartphones may provide simple product lookups and pricing but more store functions can be easily expanded on with the right in-store technology. Just as they find in an online experience, being able to search product data and previous purchase history is another way to further empower customer satisfaction.

Whether it’s pulling up more detailed product information, stock levels and locations, or being able to access a gift registry and coupons/promotional items, customers desire to have access to your retail store both physically and electronically.

Expanding the customer experience really comes down to providing the right tools to your customers. Zebra’s line of Interactive Kiosks and robust Wireless LAN are the perfect additions  to any retail environment to provide customers the ability get product information or find an associate at the exact moment they want one.
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Elo, a world leader in touchscreen and digital signage, is now partnering with a world leader in retail software solutions, Retail Pro! This partnership will bring two innovative and customer service focus companies to the forefront of the retail world.

Retail Pro’s robust POS software is installed in over 53,000 locations in 97 countries. They deliver local, accessible and professional support to any size organization and make it easy to grow your business. The same is true for Elo with over 20 million installations and 40 plus years’ experience they have seen it all! Solutions range from 10” mobile displays to 70” digital signage displays and many in between.

When pared together, Retail Pro software and Elo hardware are a powerful, customer-centric, and flexible Point-of -Sale solution to help you create an engaging customer experience and boost your bottom line.

Contact one of our POS specialists to learn how Elo and Retail Pro can improve retail efficiency for you.

Datalogic has announced a new addition to their popular QuickScan family of bar code readers – the QuickScan QBT2131 linear imager.

Linear bar codes still hold a relevant position in the data capture marketplace. The new cordless imager has an extra-wide field of view and extra-long scan line that enables the reading of long bar codes at closer distances. The sharp and highly visible scan line, coupled with the enhanced depth of field, ensures bar codes read at intuitive distances.

The QuickScan QBT2131 reader employs Bluetooth Wireless Technology allowing transmission of data to the host through its base station as well as to any commercial or embedded Bluetooth v3.0 device. This imager can also be connected to any tablet using either iOS or Android operating systems via the Bluetooth HID profile.

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