{"id":1137,"date":"2009-10-09T14:06:35","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T20:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/news\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2019-09-13T14:19:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T20:19:25","slug":"mobile-printing-keeps-productivity-percolating-at-green-mountain-coffee-roasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/news\/mobile-printing-keeps-productivity-percolating-at-green-mountain-coffee-roasters\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile Printing Keeps Productivity Percolating at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/ql420.htm\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/images\/models\/200\/Zebra\/ql420.jpg\" align=\"right\" \/><\/a><strong>Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/portable-label-printers\/\">Forklift-mounted mobile printers<\/a> cut travel time, reduced labeling errors, and increased throughput in the DC.<\/li>\n<li>Updated printing operations lowered supply costs.<\/li>\n<li>Driven natively from within PeopleSoft and other leading ERP software packages, Zebra printers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ease of integration saves considerable time and costs.<\/li>\n<li>Four different types of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/\">Zebra printers<\/a> are now used to handle various tasks through- out the company, all sharing a common printer language for ease of support and to share label formats.<\/li>\n<li>Zebra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rugged and reliable printers support the broadest range of wireless security standards.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenge<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenmountaincoffee.com\/\">Green Mountain Coffee Roasters<\/a> was named one of America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153100 Fastest-Growing Small Companies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by FORTUNE Small Business in 2006. The company was growing fast, but its main distribution center in Waterbury, Vt., was not. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters expected the facility to meet its needs for at least six years after it was built, but after three the DC was running at full capacity. The company needed to seek out new ways to make the distribution center more efficient, and to get more out of the capacity it had. Mobile printing was one of the answers to these challenges, making a key process more efficient to help Green Mountain keep up with its growing business.<\/p>\n<p>Green Mountain coffee grew from a local favorite to a successful national brand through its mail-order catalog and Web site. More success followed. Green Mountain coffee is sold nationally under the famous Newman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Own\u00c2\u00ae Organics brands, and is served in McDonald\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s restaurants throughout the Northeast. The company boasts more than 7,000 wholesale customers, was one of the first coffee companies to offer a successful Fair Trade Certified\u00c2\u00ae product line, and ranked No. 1 on Business Ethics magazine&#8217;s list of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153100 Best Corporate Citizens.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In short, Green Mountain coffee is hot. Workload at its central distribution center was overheating. The facility runs three shifts and operates 24 hours a day to ship orders to customers and other distribution centers. The company needed to find new ways to keep up with the growing demand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution<\/strong><br \/>\nTo support the output it needed, Green Mountain decided to increase automation at its main distribution center in Waterbury, Vt. Products are stored in aisles that are each 60 yards long. Material handling systems specialist Diamond Phoenix was contracted to develop a customized warehouse control system (WCS) to integrate with Green Mountain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from PeopleSoft. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/\">Zebra Technologies<\/a> Premier Partner, recommended new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/barcode-printers\/\">bar code label printers<\/a> and processes to provide more time savings and efficiency gains.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Orders are picked during the day and shelves are replenished at night. Most of the aisles are picked and replenished manually by workers on forklifts, and a robotic automated storage and retrieval system (AS\/RS) handles the rest. The new WCS receives orders from the ERP system and directs all activity.<\/p>\n<p>Forklift-based workers receive replenishment and picking instructions wirelessly on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/symbol\/mc9000-g.htm\">Symbol MC9000 mobile computers<\/a> from Motorola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Enterprise Mobility Business. Cases and other items being placed into storage require a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/labels\/\">bar coded tracking label<\/a>, and items being picked are relabeled with a bar code to associate them with the specific order. All labeling is done at the point of activity using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/ql420.htm\">Zebra\u00c2\u00ae QL 420TM wireless mobile printers<\/a> that are mounted on the forklifts. The WCS directs workers to specific aisle locations to pick or replenish products. When they arrive there, the PeopleSoft ERP system generates the specific label format and sends it to the printer in real time over the 802.11b wireless network. Workers immediately apply the label to the item.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mobile printing is a huge time savings,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mitch Casey, MIS business manager at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Having wireless connectivity comes in so handy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Mobile printing helps keep transactions accurate and delivers many of the productivity gains from the optimized pick and replenishment routes the WCS calculates. Previously, labels were printed in batches and workers drove their forklifts to a central printing location to pick up labels for their picking and putaway routes. The practice made it possible to apply the wrong label to the wrong item. It also limited productivity, because workers made numerous trips up and down the 60-yard aisles each day just to retrieve labels.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our biggest concern about mobile and wireless printing was \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWould it work?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Casey. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wireless coverage and signal strength is always a concern. Plus, it is a warehouse environ- ment, and the printers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get treated with kid gloves. We wanted rugged machines that could be mounted securely. We found the Zebra printers to be both.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And wireless coverage wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an issue either.<\/p>\n<p>Green Mountain takes advantage of the 802.11b wireless connectivity available for the QL 420 printers, eliminating the need to cable them to the mobile computers. The printers also help protect the wireless network, because they support the WPA wireless security protocol that Green Mountain is migrating to for securing its wireless devices.<\/p>\n<p>A new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/s4m.htm\">S4M stationary Zebra printer<\/a> with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/zebra\/printserver.htm\">ZebraNet<\/a>\u00c2\u00ae wireless network card is used to print 4-by-10-inch labels for items that are picked by the robotic AS\/RS machine. Additionally, Zebra compact desktop printers are used to print case labels, as every product gets put into a case. Inventory turns quickly at the distribution center, so Green Mountain Coffee Roasters doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need the endurance that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/labels\/thermal-transfer.htm\">thermal-transfer labels<\/a> provide. During its system upgrade, the company decided to switch from thermal-transfer to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/barcode-printers\/dt.htm\">direct-thermal printing<\/a> for putaway labels, which has reduced expenses by eliminating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/ribbons\/\">ribbon<\/a> costs. Green Mountain also uses Zebra industrial printers and has Xi series high-performance models in place to support other high volume labeling tasks in the distribution center.<\/p>\n<p>All told, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters uses four distinctly different Zebra product families\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmobile, desktop, industrial\/commercial tabletop, and high-performance. Each printer runs Zebra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ZPL\u00c2\u00ae printer command language. Having a consistent platform simplifies things for Casey and his MIS staff. ZPL support is embedded in Green Mountain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s PeopleSoft system, which makes it easy to direct all print output from within the ERP applications with no middleware needed.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We use so many printers here that we wanted to standardize,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Casey. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When the time came to start mobile printing, we already use so many Zebra printers we wanted to stick with them. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never even entertain another product in our warehouse for printing labels.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Results<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The associates thought the mobile printers were a breath of fresh air,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Randy Lewey, material handling and procurement supervisor at Green Mountain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Vermont distribution center. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We bought them to use as backups for our stationary printers, but they ended up being primary because they were so much of a benefit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Just like its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/cats\/printing.htm\">label printing<\/a> systems, Green Mountain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s business has taken unexpected twists. The company began as a single cafe\u00cc\u0081 serving skiers in Vermont, evolved into a successful mail-order business because visitors wanted to enjoy the coffee at home, and grew to become a leading specialty coffee provider whose brands are well-known and popular across the U.S. The company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s core product\u00e2\u20ac\u201dquality coffee\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand core values continue to serve it well. So, too, does the core distribution center, now that the core Zebra printers have been supplemented with efficiency-boosting mobile printers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mobile printing saves time because workers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to go back to a print station,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Lewey. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153To travel that distance was about three or four minutes round trip. Eliminating that is a huge time saver.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Maybe even adding enough time to stop and smell the coffee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Highlights Forklift-mounted mobile printers cut travel time, reduced labeling errors, and increased throughput in the DC. Updated printing operations lowered supply costs. Driven natively from within PeopleSoft and other leading ERP software packages, Zebra printers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ease of integration saves considerable time and costs. Four different types of Zebra printers are now used to handle various [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[135],"tags":[8,132,13],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mobile Printing Keeps Productivity Percolating at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Barcoding News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barcodesinc.com\/news\/mobile-printing-keeps-productivity-percolating-at-green-mountain-coffee-roasters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mobile Printing Keeps Productivity Percolating at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters - Barcoding News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Highlights Forklift-mounted mobile printers cut travel time, reduced labeling errors, and increased throughput in the DC. Updated printing operations lowered supply costs. Driven natively from within PeopleSoft and other leading ERP software packages, Zebra printers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ease of integration saves considerable time and costs. 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