PUMA is one of the world’s leading sport lifestyle companies that designs and develops footwear, apparel and accessories. The Salzburg Branch of Puma in Austria handles inventory management for Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The 154 subsidiaries in these countries are connected to over 500 operators at the central office in Salzburg.

In order to meet the demands of the significant number of subsidiaries, inventory volumes are enormous at the warehouse in Salzburg. Management of all the operations needed to handle the goods, such as stock transfers, picking, goods output, inventory management and quality inspections, were becoming more and more difficult with the outdated system the company was using. Therefore, the Salzburg branch of Puma started to look for a new system that could handle large volumes quickly and efficiently.

Puma found the characteristics it was looking for in the Datalogic Elf. Certified with IP64 industrial protection class, the Elf is a very robust device, an essential feature in harsh warehouse environments. It also has extensive RAM, scans quickly with no errors and transfers collected data in real time. “Datalogic Mobile and its partner, advised us very well, offering us the Elf, which fully satisfied our requirements, all at a low cost to us!”

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United States Army Medical Department is developing a mobile physical data collection system that will be used to determine soldier injury risk factors and help prevent future injuries.

Executive Summary

The US Army Medical Department was in search of a paperless system to quickly collect data in a physical evaluation setting and determine soldier injury risk. Barcodes Inc working in connection with Move2Perform, a company that developed injury calculation software, was able to create a physical evaluation software and soldier information survey using the Motorola MC75 and MSI netbook computers. The information collected was able to be imported into the Move2Perform software and give the Army accurate risk factors for each soldier in the study. The end result was that soldiers were placed in roles that would not result in the injury they were at a greater risk for and exercise techniques could be provided to strengthen vulnerable areas of the individual’s body.

The Business Challenge

Currently all new recruits to the US Military complete a basic entry physical evaluation on paper forms, but there is not an effective way to utilize these results to benefit each soldier.

Researchers at the US Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston reached out to Barcodes Inc for assistance in finding a solution that could prevent future injuries to soldiers by collecting information during physical evaluations, and using that information to recognize risk factors for potential injury to different areas of the body.

The solution needed to be expandable to multiple locations and time saving over the current paper process.

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Executive Summary

Tricor Courier and Cargo wanted to automate and expand their capabilities in delivery services. They were in need of a paperless confirmation solution consisting of a mobile computer for signature capture as well as a portable printer for on-location receipt confirmation for their customers.

The Business Challenge

Tricor came to Barcodes Inc seeking a solution to automate and streamline live package tracking and confirmation with a limited paper trail. The issue that they faced was that many of their paper delivery notifications were getting misplaced, leaving them with nothing to give to the customer. They needed a mobile computer to automatically update their server after every delivery route was completed, showing confirmation and signature capture as well as provide the customer with a physical receipt. A successful solution would be rolled out to all 50 of their drivers, each with numerous routes in the South San Francisco area.

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Honeywell’s 2D Technology Enables Automatic Age, ID Verification at Byrne Dairy Convenience Stores

Executive Summary

Byrne Dairy needed a reliable image scanning solution that could work in conjunction with its existing point-of-sale (POS) system and enable high-performance presentation scanning, plus automatic age and identity verification, to improve customer service.

The Business Challenge

Sonbyrne Sales/Byrne Dairy has 58 convenience stores across Upstate New York. For nearly 40 years, cashiers at Byrne Dairy have manually keyed in all point-of-sale transactions. And the only way cashiers could verify a customer’s age for the purchase of alcohol and tobacco products was to run their driver’s license through the New York Lottery machine. It was extremely difficult and time-consuming for cashiers to verify out-of-state licenses, since they couldn’t be run through the lottery machine and had to be checked manually.

These manual processes left room for error, so Byrne Dairy began looking into technology that could improve its processes, and ultimately, improve customer service.

“There comes a time when you realize that in order to stay competitive, make employees’ jobs easier and exceed customer expectations, you have to do something new. For Byrne Dairy, it meant investing in technology,” explains Melissa Burke, Finance/IT Manager, Sonbyrne Sales.

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Jay Peak Resort was opening a new hotel location and needed reliable access points for guest and employee Wi-Fi needs. At the time, they had 20 access points deployed in their first hotel. For the new resort, Jay Peak wanted a fast and stable Wi-Fi service at a lower cost of ownership. Barcodes Inc supplied them with Ruckus Wireless access points, the ideal choice – giving them instant configuration and complete control over their stable, secure network.

Sales Engineer: Mark Schweikle

Freeman Brothers Ensures Accurate and Efficient Product Delivery with Motorola MC75 Scanners, Zebra QL420 Printers, and Customized Mobile Route Accounting Software.

Executive Summary

Freeman Brothers was looking for a way to effectively track the distribution of their products at local retailers across their region. Their pen and paper process required them to take note of what was taken from the truck, maintain accountability if it was moved to a shelf, and provide a handwritten invoice to each store owner as a billing confirmation. Freeman Brothers wanted to move away from an antiquated system to something more in line with their competitors.

The Business Challenge

In today’s market, handing over sloppily handwritten invoices was becoming time consuming and left a lot of room for manual error. Freeman Brothers wanted to stand out to their customers with a more sleek and established Solution that would provide a positive return on investment. With only a handful of drivers doing the stocking in the field there wasn’t a need for a larger networked Solution but rather something that could work independently and be updated at the office after the completion of a shift.

Freeman Brothers wanted to give their customers the option of providing electronic invoices, as well as emailing bills to save on paper costs while also collecting valuable customer information. This would also eliminate the time that was spent printing and shipping bills from the office.

The most critical piece of the Solution was still the ability to track items from the delivery truck to the store shelf. It was a challenge having to supply over 20 different locations, each with different discount levels and products.

Solution

Barcodes Inc developed a customized route accounting software that was capable of tracking pricing, stock levels, and customer information. Additionally, Barcodes Inc developed specific features for Freeman Brothers that allowed them to have pricing tiers for different customer levels, which ultimately allowed them to provide deeper discounts to customers based on the amount of product that was ordered over time.

This customized Solution also made the process easier for Freeman Brothers’s customers by allowing them to receive an electronic copy of their invoice and an email of their receipt upon purchase. The Zebra QL420 still afforded the customer the option of receiving a printed receipt at the point of purchase, while the Motorola MC75 mobile computer provided signature capture and asset tracking capability.

Benefits

Being faster and more accurate are both showing immediate returns for Freeman Brothers who have already seen their profit margins increase with an increase in the number of stops a driver can make during a route. Additionally, they now have the critical data at a single touch of a button in the palm of their hand, thus saving them valuable time to allow them to get to the next customer in a much more efficient manner.

The company itself isn’t the only one reaping the benefits. Freeman Brothers is also seeing a benefit to their end users who are now seeing an increase in fresh product being delivered and more accurate and easy-to-read invoices being produced. With this Solution both sides are seeing the benefits immediately.

The Future

While the short term benefits are already showing potential, the long term benefits are limitless. As the company grows, their tracking system can handle the load now whereas in the past they were buried beneath messy paperwork and hard-to-read inventory checks. Now they will be able to add customers, products, and revenue to their already booming business without too much additional effort. This Solution should take care of their needs for years to come and Barcodes Inc will be there with them as their needs grow by providing them with the right products as they go forward.

Industrial Dynamics / filtec created a Filler Management System that would allow plant personnel at any bottling company (currently covering the brewery, beverage, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, spirits and wine industries) to monitor their average fill levels and limit the amount of product they placed in their bottles to meet regulatory standards. However, Industrial Dynamics needed the hardware to make this happen. They chose to partner with Barcodes Inc who recommended using ELO touchscreen monitors. Now, Barcodes Inc supplies them with these monitors at the heart of their systems wherever they implement them, worldwide. The touchscreen interface solution helped increase the efficiency and ease of use of their system, benefiting their end-users.

Sales Engineer: Mark Schweikle

Upco Inc., located in Claremore, Oklahoma, has the second largest factory in the world for the production of sucker rods. Sucker rods join together the surface and downhole components of a reciprocating piston pump installed in an oil well. With a total capacity to produce over thirty million feet of sucker rods per year, Upco is the only domestic supplier of sucker rods owned by employees.

To improve the efficiency of the plant, Upco required a system to identify quickly and easily the grade the quality of scrap in their plant. Having 7 or more different grades, employees were required to read black only labels which could create confusion and potential errors.

To reduce the potent for errors, Barcodes Inc of Chicago, IL recommended Upco purchase an Epson TM-C3400 SecurColor on-demand color label printer as well as recommended media for their application. To complete the solution, the Information Technology group in Upco wrote an application in Visual Basic to automatically select the correct color based on the grade of scrap and to print the label on the TM-C3400.

By adding a band of color, employees can easily identify the quality of the scrap, saving time, reducing errors and saving money.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) facility management office needed an easier way to track all of their assets, and Barcodes Inc was able to meet their high demands. We submitted a bid for them within 24 hours of their initial request, and when the true scale of the task was established, we contacted and worked directly with them to build a custom solution that utilized RFID technology. Their current system had employees scanning each item one by one with standard barcodes on them. They needed the ability to track over three thousand items and expected that number to double within the next year, so RFID would be optimal to allow them to scan and report data on as many units as possible at once. Through Symbol MC9090-G mobile computers, AssetWorx software and custom printed RFID tags, FHFA was able to tag all of their assets and manage their counts and locations in mass – saving them a lot of man hours and improving accuracy.

Federal Civilian Account Manager: Ed Marut

In need of a more efficient delivery and package tracking system for their home improvement products, Quaker Windows & Doors turned to Barcodes Inc for help. We created a complete solution for them which included both the hardware and software they needed to automate their, currently manual, process. Honeywell Dolphin 6500 mobile computers, accessories and Z-Space custom software were combined to fulfill their needs. This new system eliminated manual errors, created accurate delivery statuses and confirmations for their customers and minimized the customer service-related issues Quaker was previously dealing with. Needless to say, the process also became much more efficient for them.

Account Manager: Charles Mycoff