For best-in-class supply chain operations, visibility and automation are critical. When it comes to supply chain efficiency, tracking goods with barcodes is an essential piece of the logistics puzzle.
Supply chain management solutions are essentially flying blind without automatic identification technology. Barcodes play a critical role in supply chain efficiency, providing invaluable visibility into product and shipment movement. You can't manage or optimize what you can't see, and barcodes act as beacons, giving companies a way to trace the movement of every product, component, pallet, shipment, and asset across their own internal supply chain and out into the logistics networks of their suppliers and customers.
At Imprint Enterprises, our experienced staff is able to coordinate the integration of barcode technology across the value chain. That includes integrating barcode label printers and applicators directly on production or shipping lines to eliminate manual label creation and application.
As a premier Honeywell partner, we can also provide Honeywell's advanced handheld barcode scanners, like the SR61 Rugged XR, for warehouse distribution operations, as well as Dolphin handheld computers, like the Dolphin 6500 mobile computer, that combine wireless access to supply chain applications with built-in barcode scanning capabilities from the warehouse to the truck and beyond.
In production, work-in-process scanning of components and assemblies can generate automatic replenishment orders. This type of automated approach to pulling inventory is essential for just-in-time production operations and ensures that the right amount of parts is on hand or on the way.
In the warehouse, barcodes are used to track incoming shipments of goods and materials that can be scanned at receipt and during putaway operations. That data makes it easier and faster to locate and pick those goods/materials when needed. Outgoing scans confirm the goods are on their way, and can generate automatic advance shipping notices (ASNs) for recipients, providing further efficiency and value.
By scanning every item as it enters and exits inventory, companies can get a better gauge of how much inventory to carry and where inventory can be shifted. Those scans also provide accurate data on inventory turns, which can be used for additional forecasting and ordering optimization.
Increasing inventory turns also lowers carrying costs and frees up space in your facilities.
By reducing picking and shipping errors, warehouses save themselves costly rework, returns, chargebacks, and additional labor. Picking errors are much less costly and time consuming to correct than shipping errors, which is why barcodes are such a valuable tool in ensuring pick accuracy and supply chain efficiency. However, cost savings go out the door when scanners and mobile computers aren’t working. Honeywell offers some of the most reliable mobile computers and scanners in the industry, like the CK71 mobile computer and the Thor CV31 vehicle-mount computer, so your business is always protected.
Barcode scanning also saves time wasted on manual stock location, and allows companies to implement advanced order picking methods like zone or batch picking, which cut down processing times.
Goods can then be scanned on to receiving trucks, and again when they are delivered. This last-mile scanning pioneered by delivery companies like FedEx and UPS, provides visibility from the point of production to final delivery to the customer. This data confirms delivery, helps reduce theft and loss in the supply chain, and provides an accurate record of how long it takes to deliver goods. That information can then be used to find potential bottlenecks and identify areas of improvement.
Barcodes provide the basic building blocks for continuous improvement and optimization programs to improve supply chain efficiency.
