Plant Access is a specialised logistics services provider, catering for the green life industry. Plant Access provides a highly efficient service utilising a unique, innovative steel stillage design used to pick, crossdock and deliver nursery plants to Bunnings Warehouse locations across Victoria and South Australia.

Weeding out manual processes

Plant Access manages the orders and provides the steel stillages that are used to transport plant products from over 67 nursery supplier sites to Bunnings stores across Victoria and South Australia. Shipments from different suppliers are consolidated at the Plant Access cross dock facility before orders are transported to Bunnings locations and plants are sold to consumers direct out of the steel stillages.

At any one time, Plant Access has thousands of re-usable steel stillages spread across hundreds of sites throughout the supply chain. Knowing the location of all these stillages and the status of an order was a serious challenge for Plant Access under a legacy paper-based manual ordering system.

A new automated tracking system was necessary to capture real-time data from nursery supplier sites, the Plant Access cross dock logistics facility and the Bunnings stores, in order for Plant Access to have an accurate and instant visibility of their stillage assets and the products they were transporting.

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Copper Mountain is a premier ski resort based in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. With more than 2,500 acres of ski terrain and around 10,000 skiers entering the ski lifts each day, Copper Mountain relies heavily on quick and efficient scanning operations.

When tasked with finding a mobile device to use in their lift lines, they wanted only the best. They needed reliable and cost effective solutions for various solutions for not only their lift lines, but their retail and rental locations as well. Ultimately, they selected a solution from Honeywell.

British American Tobacco (BAT) is the market leader in the Romanian tobacco industry. Operations began, as a local affiliate, in 1994 and BAT Romania was founded as a domestic business entity in 1996. Local production began at the company’s Ploiesti factory in 1997. The factory now employs more than 500 staff and produces brands including Kent, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Dunhill, Vogue, Viceroy and Rothmans for both local and international markets.

The company’s sales agents had previously been using a range of dot matrix printers for printing all required documents to carry out their daily engagement with customers. However, poor printer performance, costly printer consumables, printer size and issues related to limited connectivity led to BAT looking for a new solution to ensure that their sales agents’ productivity levels were improved. They looked to upgrade to a printer that could withstand the rigours of the field sales environment and that could grow with them in the future.

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When choosing a mobile computer or barcode scanner, one of the last things on anybody’s mind is what kind of battery I should buy with my device. Even worse, sellers fail to explain how the battery alone can save a company on time, money and productivity.

Research shows that companies lose at least 20 minutes of productivity every time a battery is changed mid-shift. Here’s an example of what device downtime can cost:

• 500 devices in operation
• 500 devices x 1 battery failure each = 500 mid-shift failures per day
• 500 mid-shift failures x 20 minutes each = 167 hours lost each day
• 167 hours/day x $9.00/hour = $1,503.00 per day
• $1,503.00 x 360 days = $541,080 PER YEAR in lost productivity

Don’t take chances with your batteries – IPT Productivity+ Series batteries run 15% – 20% longer and guarantee 100% compatibility with OEM devices including Symbol, Zebra, Motorola, Honeywell, Intermec, LXE, Datamax-O’Neil and Vocollect.

Is your aging thermal printer holding up the productivity of your operations? Even without noticeable downtime or breaks, an older printer could be the hold up to improving day-to-day efficiency with slower print speeds and minimal printer intelligence.

Now is the perfect time to gain the benefits of a newer, more intelligent printer and save up to $625 with the 2015 Honeywell Printer Trade-In Rebate. With a new Honeywell printer you can improve your printing process with:

• Easy setup and integration, regardless of your current printer environment
• Intuitive interfaces utilizing full-color touchscreens or intelligent icon interfaces
• Fast print speeds of up to 12 inches per second – no more ‘waiting around’ for labels
• Simple maintenance, with tool-free media and printhead replacement
• Smart Printing means you can run apps right inside the printer and even control peripherals—no need for an attached PC

For a limited time, refresh to the best thermal printers and save up when you trade in your old printer – even competitive models. Shop now for a new Honeywell/Intermec printer

For more details on the Honeywell trade-in program, contact an account manger at Barcodes, Inc. Shop now for a new Honeywell/Intermec printer

As time marches on, many of the influences on our businesses change as well. This change alone is a great reason to frequently review your operations and make sure you are employing the very best practices in every facet of your business operations. In a recent research study conducted by Vanson Bourne trucking professionals reported that only 61% of their companies had conducted any type of process re-engineering effort in the previous 12 months. That leaves 39% of transportation operations as a whole (33% of private fleets and 53% of for-hire operations) that have not made a focused effort to innovate and improve their operational processes.

When you contrast that static approach to business against constantly evolving regulatory requirements, you have an obvious disconnect. For example, let’s take a topic like commercial vehicle inspections. All commercial fleets perform them since they are required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) initiative1 . Yet, how many companies execute these inspections and reports in a manner that not only improves the fleet’s Vehicle Maintenance BASIC score, but also improves the efficiency of the operation, positively impacting everything from driver performance to customer satisfaction?

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As IT and operations leaders strive to improve their bottom line in 2015 and beyond, Intermec by Honeywell has announced two barcode label printers, offering an entry-level solution for reliable industrial printing at a competitive price.

Combining the reliability of an industrial-class product with the simplicity of a desktop printer, the PD43 and the compact PD43c printers are designed for use in the distribution center, transportation (including airline passenger service), retail and healthcare industries. These new printers allow workers around the world to conduct business-critical tasks such as airline ticketing, baggage tag printing, shelf label printing and pharmaceutical label printing.

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Honeywell has updated several of their mobile computers with the new version of HTML5 Browser which can be downloaded for existing units and will currently be provided on new devices.

HTML5 Browser allows cross-platform applications that have been developed using HTML5 technology to run on a wide range of Honeywell mobile computers. This capability provides two major advantages to Honeywell and to our software development
partners:

• The HTML5 capability allows Honeywell mobile computers to be sold into applications where they have not previously been able to operate. This includes applications that are written primarily to run on consumer-grade smartphones, but where those smartphones are proving to be too fragile
• The HTML5 capability provides software developers a path forward in this time of operating system road map uncertainty. As vendors of rugged mobile devices evaluate alternate operating systems, software vendors are left to wonder how to develop for the next generation of hardware. HTML5 offers one path forward that insulates them from these uncertainties.

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As a leading manufacturer of Auto Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) products, Intermec has all the barcode, RFID, and mobility products to help you manage any sized warehouse. From checking in palattes as they come through dock doors to tracking inventory and shipping out orders, Intermec has a complete product line to make your operations more efficient and accurate.

Honeywell has announce a new expanded operating system conversion capability for their CN51 enterprise mobile device. This new software conversion allows customers to purchase devices with an operating system that supports their existing application software, while enabling them to migrate to newer applications in the future to take advantage of the latest system enhancements and preserve their hardware investment.

Any CN51 originally shipped from the factory with Windows Embedded Handheld (WEH) 6.5 may be converted in the field to Android by purchasing the CN51 Android Conversion License (P/N 238-000-002), applying the license per the included instructions, and loading the new Android software. The Microsoft WEH 6.5 Certificate of Authenticity (COA) label must be removed from the battery compartment on CN51 devices running Android. It is recommended that the customer retain the COA for possible later reapplication should the device be reverted to WEH 6.5.

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