What newest technologies can help speed up the supply chain workflow?
Quite recently, forklifts have shown their worth throughout
the supply chain. As a matter of fact, forklifts have now successfully
transformed from material handling vehicles into full-fledged information technology
platforms in their own right. In the sense that they are now able to leverage anything
and everything from printers to barcode scanners, and from computers to RFID
chips, not to mention software that can be used to optimize otherwise highly
complex workflow operations.
Various vehicle mounted data collection and computation
platforms are now widely considered to be the ‘proven best practice’ platforms
when it comes to improving overall workflows that also offer quite significant
performance benefits in the long run.
Not only can they easily drive overall workflow productivity
upwards with ‘state of the art’automatic tracking of both vehicle location as
well as loading status, but they can also easily and substantially reduce material
handling costs as well, while also simultaneously improving both safety related
as well as compliance issues.
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RFID technology
Apart from that, automated scanning processes duly imbedded with
RFID technology can both sort and track pallets on the move,quickly and
accurately.
Such vehicle mounted data collection platforms are also able
to effectively optimize the speed of order processing and fulfillment rates and
they can also effectively ensure inventory accuracy with the help of real time data
tracking procedures.
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Instant verification of different pallets
The best thing about using such technology is that it can
effectively eliminate the manual searching of labels and can also help with comparing
to bills of lading. As the various pallets and parcels are loaded from the
forklift on to the container, RFID tags can easily read and confirm the fact
that the right shipments are outbound on the right truck.
Thanks to such revolutionary strides in high technology, it
is now quite possible to be able to prevent miss-shipments, by the fairly
simple expedient of automatically verifying both the pallet ID and also the
dock and door location. In the long run, such purpose built ‘Vehicle-Performance
Solutions’ can not only streamline various operations, but at the same time,
they can also help reduce both capital expenses and also labor costs too by
integrating various technologies and weaving them together, to form seamless
solutions to real world problems. Some of the equipment used for this purpose
include the following:
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Different types of vehicle mounted computers
Today’s vehicle mount computers produced by Zebra have been built
for the express purpose of increasing productivity all across the value chain.
They are available across a fairly wide range of diverse applications in some
of the toughest manufacturing facilities, distribution center environments, and
also freight operations.
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Highly rugged handheld computers
The key benefit of a mobile computer is that it can
significantly improve the workflows at a distribution center, factory or even a
dockyard with the help of its advanced data collection capabilities, along with
its unique ability of enabling real time communication. Here, Zebra’s extremely
rugged hand held devices are able to do the needful, thanks to an extended
battery life as well as industrial strength hardware. In fact,many such these
devices are also well equipped with powerful scanners that can easily scan bar
codes from up to 50 feet away, so that the probability of making wrong
shipments is drastically reduced.
Zebra has a whole range of similar devices to ensure that
productivity all across the supply chain remains as high as possible, and
shipment times are also substantially reduced.
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