White Papers About Barcoding and Data Collection
Your food path: Traced
Facing rising operational costs and growing visibility of consumer food safety, you're under pressure to improve efficiency and increase customer satisfaction. To meet these needs while containing costs, food traceability programs are particularly imperative for achieving rapid responses to potential product recalls. It's because of our deep understanding of these issues as well as the quality of our rugged mobile computers and printers that today's farmers turn to Intermec and our partners for complete food traceability solutions.
Selecting the wearable that will deliver maximum value in your enterprise environment
Confronted with the rising cost of doing business, ever increasing competitive pressures, and new regulatory challenges, today's enterprise organizations seek new ways to gain a competitive edge. Companies face constant pressure to streamline operations, increase productivity, and reduce labor costs. Fortunately, recent advancements in wearable computing technology help enable them to do just that.
Mobility Matters: Improve Regulatory Compliance, Inventory and Invoice Management in CPG/Food & Beverage
There are two categories of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturing: perishable (or produce to order) and non-perishable (produce to inventory). Produce to order manufacturers, typically in the food and beverage (F&B) sector, are dealing with inventory that must be delivered immediately (such as bread, fresh fruit juice, milk or doughnuts) due to a very short shelf life. Many CPG/F&B manufacturers are implementing enterprise mobility solutions to address the specific issues they are facing as well as to improve data collection processes, reduce errors and improve accuracy orverall and finally to squeeze out any remaining inefficiencies inherent in paper-based processes.
Mobile Printing Streamlines Supply Chain and Warehouse Processes
With an increasing emphasis on cost reduction, global enterprises are looking for ways to improve efficiency and accuracy in their supply and distribution chains. To remain competitive, distribution centers, manufacturers, and short-haul and long-haul carriers must change the way they label and track goods. Success depends on maximizing efficiency throughout all supply chain operations—front to back. Exploiting mobile barcode printer technology is fundamental to achieving optimal efficiency.
Future-Proofing Your Mobile Computers
Rugged mobile computers deployed to warehouses, DCs and other transportation and distribution environments often aren’t used as long as expected, and as result cost the organization more than expected. According to a study, companies typically replace their DC computers after about 3-1/2 years, which is approximately seven months sooner than planned at the start of the deployment. Rugged mobile computers can actually last even longer, but are retired prematurely because the processors, software, communications data capture capabilities contained within the rugged housing are considered inefficient or obsolete. Extending the service life increases the value of mobile computers.
How Ruggedness Reduces TCO for Mobile Computers
General-purpose PDAs and ruggedized enterprise mobile computers are made for separate markets, are designed for different tasks, and also vary by their size, weight and materials. But the biggest difference between these device types is their total cost of ownership (TCO). Organizations can’t afford to overlook this important difference in challenging times when all costs are under scrutiny and funds for new equipment are oftentimes limited. Despite their lower purchase price, smart phones and PDAs cost much more to own and operate than ruggedized mobile computers in service, delivery, retail, warehouse and manufacturing environments, according to independent research that studied mobile computer life cycles in these environments.[excerpt]
Top 5 Tips for Choosing Mobile Computers
Sorting through the smart phones, PDAs and ruggedized computers available for business use is no easy task. Dozens of manufacturers offer hundreds of devices in thousands of configurations, but only one may be best suited for your particular environment and workforce. Rather than trying to stay on top of all the products that are being introduced and discontinued, the technologies and features being added, plus available peripherals and software, enterprises can quickly cut down to a few viable options by following five basic tips. [excerpt]
Eight Steps to Going Mobile
The most knowledgeable companies are carefully selecting their mobile computers for durability, compatibility and minimum impact on the information technology (IT) department. In fact, Gartner has recommended that “enterprises should consider industrial forms of handhelds whenever application conditions involve the potential mistreatment of units. Failure to follow this best practice will lead to failure rates in excess of 20 percent per year.” [excerpt]
Lowering Total Cost of Ownership with Mobile Device Management
CIOs, IT managers, road warriors, warehouse staff – we all love our mobile devices and the productivity and convenience they bring to everyday work tasks. Although handheld devices are terrific tools, the fact is, managing and maintaining them can be prohibitively expensive. Gartner estimates the annual total cost of ownership (TCO) for mobile devices equipped with wireless modems – a must in most industrial environments – is around $4000 per device per year. [excerpt]
The Synchronized Distribution Supply Chain: Best Practices in Warehouse Management
The warehouse is at the center of your business, a key area through which nearly everything in your business must pass — from packages in a parcel post environment to raw materials and finished goods in a manufacturing plant to a wealth of products in a distribution center. When mobility is extended throughout your warehouse, a new level of efficiency, accuracy and visibility can be achieved. Paper processes are replaced by real-time computerized forms on mobile computers; bar code scanning enables checks and double checks that the right item is being picked, packed and shipped; and RFID provides automatic tracking of materials without human intervention. [excerpt]
Synchronizing the Distribution Supply Chain with Mobility
In the massive $2.9 trillion distribution industry, the roles of the manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler and retailer are beginning to blur, driven by heightened competition, the new global economy and increasing customer demands for the right product, the right price and the right service. [excerpt]
Embrace Change Today for Competitive Strength Tomorrow
Smarter customers, asset visibility, mobile workers...the key to leveraging these trends? More intelligent and robust devices, applications and networks. Business-critical data is being collected at every stange, about every asset and every person. To grow and prosper, you must have the right solutions in place leveraging this data to emplower mobile workers, enable real-time visibility of assets and engage smarter customers in dynamic new ways. You competitive strength depends on it. [excerpt]
Building a Unified Enterprise Mobility Strategy
In today’s competitive environment, it is no longer economically feasible for IT organizations to separately manage multiple networks to access mobile data. Exponentially scalable infrastructure, such as sprawling access points and arrays of barcode readers, barcode printers and RFID readers, is prohibitively expensive in terms of manpower and operations costs for most organizations. Also, maintaining disparate pools of data results in a missed opportunity for companies to achieve end-to-end visibility and control over business processes. [excerpt]
Handheld Computers: Repair or Replace? Analyzing the Decision for Best ROI
This white paper identifies factors to consider when considering a Repair or Replace decision. It is important to explore the criteria and become aware of the higgen costs or missed opportunities associated with handheld computers that are over three years old. [excerpt]
Understanding the TCO of Rugged Mobile Computers as Compared to Consumer-Grade Devices
This white paper covers the use of rugged mobile computers in industrial environments when compared to consumer-grade hendhelds. It will show how rugged mobile computers provide greater return on investment over the long run. This document explains what criteria companies need to understand when purchasing mobile computers to receive the greatest ROI. Rugged devices are far better suited than consumer-grade devices in industrial environments. This paper clarifies the benefits of having rugged devices in harsh applications and how they can reduce companies' costs and improve the overall mobile process. [excerpt]
Selecting the wearable that will deliver maximum value in your enterprise environment
Companies — including global retailers, pharmaceutical and grocery distributors, and parcel handling giants — realize that hands-free computing can empower workers to achieve new levels of efficiency, productivity, and accuracy in package handling and warehouse applications. However, choosing the right wearable solution can be a challenge. This paper helps demystify the process by examining key criteria for evaluating wearable computers and exploring the ways enterprise organizations can ensure they reap maximum benefit from their investment. [excerpt]
