Track/Trace Solutions for the Logistics Supply Chain
Consumer satisfaction with the quality of your products is clearly important, but the service you provide before and after the sale is equally important to any business, but often overlooked as benefiting the bottom line. However, providing efficient tracking and tracing of shipped products enhances customer loyalty and your company image. Obviously, satisfied customers are a company’s greatest asset.
Track/Trace solutions including software and Automatic identification technologies such as barcoding and RFID are both reliable and effective in ensuring the efficient delivery of materials and components to you and to your customers.
According to Claes Fornell, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business and The American Customer Satisfaction Index, “As long as repeat business is important, and as long as customers have a chance to go somewhere else, employees must deliver high levels of satisfaction for a company to be successful.” In other words, satisfied customers often become repeat customers and one way to ensure satisfaction is to provide complete visibility from sale to delivery.
Simply stated, an efficient logistics supply chain accurately tracks and traces the delivered materials used to create finished products and then stores the inventory until picking, packing, shipping, and delivery of sold products are completed.
Honeywell Acquires Movilizer, Leader in Simplifying Operations for Remote Connected Workers
Honeywell has completed its acquisition of privately held Movilizer, which created one of the world’s first cloud platforms for field service applications. Movilizer is used by remote workers performing service or maintenance, sales and distribution, and warehousing activities away from the office. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Movilizer’s cloud software enables a distributed workforce to create, deploy and manage workflow solutions – whether at the point of sale, in the field, in a warehouse or distribution center. Customers can seamlessly collect, transmit and analyze data generated by their workers on their existing information technology (IT) systems, enabling them to harness the power of their workforce from anywhere to best serve the needs of their end customers.
Plant Access Grows Its Competitive Edge with Honeywell RFID Solutions
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.
Zebra’s CS4070 the Ideal Companion Scanner for Tablets and Smartphones
Whether your workers are in retail or field service, field sales or transportation and logistics, the new features in the Zebra CS4070 make it easier than ever to scan, with a hassle-free constant Bluetooth connection to laptops and tablets, plus the ability to format your data, your way, to meet any application requirement.
The CS4070 is the perfect companion scanner solution to seamlessly integrate with virtually any line of business application.
Proof of Delivery, Signature Capture and Receipt Printing Made Easy with Zebra
In the world of delivery and pick-up logistics, speed and accuracy are the foundations of any successful business. Gone are the days of paper manifest’s and clipboards to guide a delivery driver through their day. Information has to be accessible and capturable in real-time to efficiently track the delivery process from truck to customer and proof of delivery.
Zebra’s mobile technology offering empowers drivers with the ability to scan packages to dynamically record their deliveries, electronically capture signatures and take photos for proof of delivery. Dispatch also can notify drivers mid-route about a new deliveries, changes in route or last minute pick-ups.
Zebra’s MC9500K mobile computer provides the real-time visibility workers need to instantly access their deliveries for the day, accurately document all delivery information, capture signatures, and stay connected to dispatchers for anything that may come up mid-route. Paired with the RW420 mobile printer for invoices, receipts, and delivery confirmations, you have an unstoppable combination to keep deliveries on time and accurate.
Cut costs and eliminate inefficiencies while improving the customer experience with Zebra Delivery Solutions.
Infographic: Transportation and Logistics Solutions with Zebra and Barcodes, Inc.
The two most important things for any transportation and logistics operation are timing and accuracy. Delivering the right items at the right time are essential. Armed with the right technology from Zebra and Barcodes, Inc you can be assured every stage of your process from picking and packing to delivery confirmation will improve in efficiency and accuracy.
Zebra’s New ET50/55 Enterprise Tablets
The enterprise tablet market barely existed a few years ago and yet the adoption of enterprise tablets continues on an upward trajectory that few predicted where an ever increasing set of applications and use cases are emerging. On one hand, big windows applications are being modified to support mobility. On the other, needs being satisfied by traditional mobile handheld devices are now being met with enterprise class tablets providing improved processing power, battery efficiency, and durability.
Today’s fragmented tablet market creates a distinctive opportunity for Zebra Technologies and the introduction of the ET50 and ET55 line of tablets. ET5X tablets are not consumer grade solutions and nor are they fully rugged, high tier PC devices. ET5X takes a value approach by delivering the reliability and enterprise solutions that consumer tablets miss while being selective on the features and specifications to control costs. A diversity of ET5X accessories enables a myriad of enterprise use cases in various verticals including field service, transportation and logistics, direct store delivery, manufacturing, and retail/hospitality.
White Paper: The Internet of Things
What is it?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the coming connectivity of everything you own, everything you see. No longer will access to the internet be limited to single point interfaces like your phone or computer, or single-point data sources like web pages or servers. Nor will it be limited to you! Everything you see can, and someday will, be interconnected and sharing data: your tv, your refrigerator, your home, your car, the roads you drive on, the building you work in, the package you’re delivering…everything.
So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities. Products built with M2M communication capabilities are often referred to as being smart.
Automating Transportation and Logistics
Logistics accuracy and timing is critical to customers. If you’re a business and deliver the wrong item or fail to deliver it on-time then you have likely lost that customer’s business. To achieve a right first-time delivery we recommend automating your collection and delivery processes to incorporate mobile computers, wearable computers and other barcode equipment, along with our software solutions. Check out some logistics areas that can be automated to provide a more accurate and quicker process that ensures a better customer experience.
- Sortation and Vehicle Loading – Sorting and loading the right packages is critical for delivery accuracy. Any failed delivery or return results in a cost to the business. With our wearable mobile computers and voice-based software, you can more quickly and easily sort and load packages for first-time accurate delivery. This technology is an evolution from the traditional conveyor system.
- Dispatch – Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost each year on fuel costs that are a result of ineffective routes and delivery scheduling. Our route planning solution can provide your business with continuously optimal reliable routes while using fewer trucks, miles and drivers. It also enables real-time appointment scheduling in order to keep fleet operations productive and profitable while increasing customer satisfaction.
- Delivery and Collection – Confirmation and proof of delivery is the final element of item tracking. However, many times package deliveries cannot be confirmed due to lost paperwork. Using a mobile computer and point of delivery software allows a driver to capture a signature and confirm the proof of delivery. Additionally, many mobile computers come equipped with GPS to where drivers are at all times and if they arrived at said location.
- Driver De-brief and Vehicle Checks – Missing paperwork, illegible handwriting and sorting through dozens of paperwork can make collecting manual data from drivers a nightmare. With our technology, we have the ability to transform paper documents into an automated form that is accessible through a mobile computer. Additionally, having a telematics system in each vehicle allows for vehicle information to be digitally synched and tracked. Not only does it reduce the need for somebody to transfer manual data into a computer but it also dramatically reduces the amount of time a driver needs at the end of his day for his de-brief.
For more information on how Barcodes, Inc. can automate your transportation and logistics processes give one of our experts a call to get a free consultation for your logistics solutio n.
Zebra’s New ZQ500 Series Rugged Mobile Printers for Field-Based Applications
Zebra has announced the launch of their new ZQ500 mobile printer series designed for rugged field-based applications.
The 3-inch ZQ510 and 4-inch ZQ520 printers are portable, print-on-demand devices that combine a military-grade design with simple functionality for printing solutions that require a robust device capable of going into any outdoor or indoor environment. The new ZQ500 series is also the perfect replacement for the previous RW Series and is targeted for transportation & logistics, distribution, field service, and government applications.
