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Ask Raymond: Do I have any hidden improvements?

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Most business operations use labels at some point.  At the very least, labels are used for shipping, product or asset identification, work on process tracking, item location, warning notices, and the list goes on…

While everyone wants to save money, many operations overlook the cost of labels or the cost of not labeling correctly.

Label technology has changed as much as anything else in our high-tech world.  Improvements in adhesives, top-coating, methods of dispensing and applying, and the label materials themselves had undergone myriad changes – many of which are not known to the average manager.

Why ask about labels?

Man scanning a barcode on a circuit board in a warehouse next to a Zebra printer

Why Ask about Labels for Hidden Improvement

Avalon has found many “hidden” opportunities for customers to extract cost savings from labeling operations.  Simple ways to reconfigure label formats or packaging can result in significant operational savings.  Moving from a more optimal form of printing technology can reduce material costs and improve environmental or “green” operation.  Logistics programs to leverage production economies of scale are often underused as are savings in overall printer support.

When to ask about labels?

Peeling a label to place it on a custom part

When to Ask About Labels for Hidden Improvement

Label cost is not considered a major expenditure by companies concentrating on the three P’s – People, Plant, and Product.  Since potential savings can be overlooked in an assessment. An educated label specialist often produces significant savings. If you think your labeling operations are optimized, it is still time to ask about labels.  “Hidden” savings in label costs cannot hide from a label professional.  If you think your labeling operations may not be optimized or it has been a long time since anyone took a good hard look, then, chances are, you may be able to save more than you thought possible.

Who to ask about labels?

Zebra's DS3600 scanning a barcode under a pallet in a warehouse

Who to Ask About Labels for Hidden Improvement

A label manufacturer knows about labels.  However they may not specialize in printer technology, business operations, and logistics, and associated data collection technology – they are all interrelated.  Avalon can not only look at the “label” itself but also all components of your operations before and after the label is applied.

There is a good chance that your labeling system can benefit from an optimized solution. To explore your options, contact our labeling expert, Raymond Scipioni, for an in-depth assessment of your current system.

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Dial Dan: 4 Top Priorities to fit into Your Workspace

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I can’t believe it was only February 20th when my blog posting started with “Unemployment is at a 40 year low”.

While 2019 was all about maximizing labor productivity, 2020 is shaping up to be about how we can all get back to work as safely as possible.

Here are some of the ways that we are helping our clients implement current best practices:

Signage everywhere should be project #1.

Signage – Back in WW2, you couldn’t walk 10 feet at a government facility or factory making war materials without passing a sign that said “Loose lips sink ships” or something similar. It only takes one person to speak out of turn to give the enemy an advantage. Today’s enemy is the virus, and it only takes one or two folks to give it a foothold in a community. We need people wearing masks, maintaining distance, and disinfecting shared surfaces and devices to minimize exposure and spread. We’ve got a huge collection of signage of various sorts that our clients can post throughout their facilities to constantly remind people to stay safe.

Disinfection everywhere should be project #2.

Healthcare Worker wearing a mask and putting on gloves in a hospital room

Disinfection cycles for shared devices – While you can protect yourself from some diseases by wearing gloves, COVID-19 required more in-depth strategies than that. Rather than gloves, constant disinfection of shared devices and surfaces is the way to go. Hospitals and hair salons/barbershops have long used UV light for this purpose, and UV light can be a great way to constantly disinfect things like mobile computers, tools, printers, and keyboards on shared PCs. We’ve got a collection of UV light-based products, long used in hospital settings, available for our clients.

Employee and visitor screening should be project #3.

Zebra Android Scanner being used in a Hospital to track patients barcode

Employee and visitor screening – Keeping sick people out of your facility keeps your employees safe. The best way to do that is via thermal imaging cameras. We’ve got a selection of cameras that can passively monitor employees and visitors as they enter, alerting you to ones that may be running a fever (for future screening).  The cameras can also optionally check for mask usage.

Social distance monitoring and tracing should be project #4.

Real-time social distance monitoring and contact tracing – For our clients lucky enough to have deployed Zebra Android devices in the past few years, we have a solution that can enforce social distancing and also provide for historical contact tracing, via Bluetooth tags. When one user of a Zebra device gets too close to another, both of their devices beep, vibrate and remind them to separate. And, weeks later, when one of them is diagnosed, you can see exactly who they were in contact with and for how long. In the near term future, we expect these technologies to become available on non Zebra devices as well, including employees’ phones (You’ll still need a Zebra Bluetooth tag per employee though for best results).

We hope that it won’t be long before we can get back to figuring out how to maximize employee productivity. In the interim though, please look to us to help you get back to work!

For more information on how to implement these projects into your workforce, dial Dan McCabe for a free remote demonstration and assessment of your current workspace.

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RFID – What is it good for?

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RFID growth has been quite strong over the past few years, especially in the apparel sector.

Outside of apparel, the 4 most common use cases for RFID that we see are:

Asset inventory

An RFID Scanner can help with Asset Inventory

An RFID Scanner can help with Asset Inventory

Putting an RFID tag on high-value assets, rather than just a barcode, adds very little expense upfront, but it can dramatically reduce the time required to take inventory later. Because you tend to only need a few handheld readers for that inventory, the upfront cost is low, making the ROI on this sort of project very attractive.

Consumable inventory

Consumable Inventory

Consumable Inventory is easy for any warehouse

Think things like prescription drugs in an ambulance, or chemicals in a research facility. Then inventories are being taken daily, weekly, or monthly, counting via RFID or barcode is an obvious win, rather than (perish the thought) pencil and paper.

Production reporting

With RFID production reporting is easy

With RFID production reporting is easy

It is shockingly common within our customer base that manufacturing reports that they produced X pallets, but the warehouse can only account for X – 5. Where did they go? We’ll probably never know. With RFID, this is an easy problem to solve. When manufacturing labels the pallet with an RFID tag rather than just a barcode, it is easy to read and track when it passes through the door to the warehouse without any human action required. This can completely eliminate the question of how many pallets actually got produced and stored. And, if you know the “right” answer, you can go figure out who did what wrong to make your other systems not agree.

Warehouse inventory “missing”

RFID can help keep track of your warehouse inventory

RFID can help keep track of your warehouse inventory

Similar to the case above, it is often the case that pallets are produced, stored, and then somehow, later, inexplicably “gone”. If the pallet already has an RFID tag on it from production, it is a simple matter to put a reader at the outbound dock to scan it as it goes through, again without any human action required. Not only will your inventory always be correct, but you’ll also be able to catch when things are going out the door that aren’t supposed to be.

There are many uses for RFID in the warehouse. If you can have any more questions on how to apply the most intelligent locationing technology into your operations, reach out to Dan McCabe to start optimizing your inventory management system.

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Dial Dan: What’s New in 2020?

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Business in America has always been competitive, as that is simply the nature of capitalism. There are a few things that are new and different now though, which are fundamentally changing how many of our clients competing:

Portrait of Dan McCabe

Portrait of Dan McCabe

Unemployment

Unemployment is now at a 40-year low. It is harder than ever to recruit strong players to your team.

Direct to consumer shipping

For most of our clients, the historical norm was to ship pallet quantities to distributors who would then take it from there.

Because people have become accustomed to “same day shipping, next day delivery”, many of our clients now find themselves shipping in case quantities to tens of distribution centers around the country, or, in some cases drop shipping in batches direct to consumers on behalf of web retailers or their distributors.

This is problematic because our clients’ warehouses, systems, procedures, and people often were not set up to do this case or each picking in an efficient fashion.

These two factors are causing many of our clients to really ramp up their investments in technology.

  • Clients that run on pen and paper are looking to deploy mobile computers.
  • Clients that run on mobile computers are looking to deploy wearable computers, voice-based systems, and even heads up displays to further improve productivity.
  • Clients with the largest workforces are even starting to deploy “co-bots” (robots that work alongside humans) and other forms of automation (self-driving forklift anyone?)

What’s going out outside the warehouse?  In production areas?

Dan Mccabe holding the MC9300 from Zebra Technologies

Dan Mccabe holding the MC9300 from Zebra Technologies

The hot top is “mistake-proofing”.  Low unemployment is resulting in more mistakes than ever before.

Whether that is because the new employees aren’t as capable as they used to be, the turnover is higher than it used to be, or there is less time to train them, the result is the same – more mistakes.

Many of our clients are keenly aware that mistakes are on the rise and that mistakes can be very expensive.  They are looking to us for technologies, products, and solutions that will help them prevent mistakes or at least catch them while they are still in the building when the are comparatively cheap to fix.

The 2 big technologies that are really ramping up are:

RFID

We’ve been hearing about RFID for almost 20 years now, with very few deployments outside of apparel in retail. What’s new is that RFID has grown at >50% nationally in each of the past 3 years and much of that growth is outside of retail. People are using RFID to systemically catch when people, assets, or inventory are not where they are supposed to be, BEFORE something bad happens.

Bluetooth Locationing

With RFID, tags are cheap, and readers are expensive.  With Bluetooth, those are flipped. When people want to track a comparatively small number of reusable things (think totes or gaylords) across a large area, Bluetooth can be a more cost-effective solution and we are starting to see a lot of interest in this area.

Are these things really here?  Are they right for me?

All of the technologies that I’ve mentioned are definitely here today. However, they are at different stages of maturation and require different levels of commitment from your IT staff to deploy.  Our job here at Avalon is to help you figure out how to get the most out of your workforce based on the budget and IT resources you have available.

Interestingly enough, folks at a single plant or warehouse tend to have ready access to budget, but not much access to IT support.

We often find ourselves working across plants and warehouses in the same organization to “drum up” support for a corporate initiative which will enable the individual sites to “skip” a few iterations of technology all at once.  That almost always requires a bit of IT support.

Committed to helping others in any situation, Dan McCabe can assist you in evaluating your current workflow to integrate the appropriate technology. To discover your match, speak to Dan McCabe today and unlock all the possibilities hidden in the modern warehouse and plant.

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