The Visible Value Blog

In manufacturing, success used to belong to those who could predict demand long into the future and use this foresight to gain an edge through more effective planning. But things have changed. Increasingly, consumers want personalised products and this has seen a huge increase in product variants and hence need items built to order and dispatched faster than ever. In fact, we’re moving into an era where a plant needs to adjust to orders in real time – with all the consequences that has on managing bills of materials, production and more.

With global online sales predicted to reach $8 trillion by 2020* – pretty much all of our customers speak of a number of common challenges: warehouses are carrying more items, orders are more complex, peaks are extreme, new workflows need to be introduced (e.g. processing returns) and the pressure’s on to deliver next-day.

In retail, insight is king. And with data starting to help retailers make more informed and agile decisions, new ways are emerging to keep sales tracking upwards, reduce loss, and make the most of the store experience.

 

Are your customers becoming more and more demanding when it comes to individual component tracking in electrical goods you have produced?

Accountability is increasing in all areas of today’s world – and manufacturing is no exception. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are present in most electrical products: iPhones, computers, televisions, for example. And businesses, especially those in high risk sectors such as aerospace and engineering, want to be able to track and trace individual PCBs.

Global supplier of SMT printing solutions Speedprint Technology has partnered with the Zebra Technologies OEM team to help manufacturers address that issue.

In a business world defined by connectivity, speed of service and quality customer care, the pressure to deliver the goods is mounting. The fast-changing and demanding nature of transport and logistics means your teams need the right equipment to successfully fulfil customers’ requests.

The time was when buying mobile devices for drivers and warehouse teams, you faced a tricky decision. Your users almost certainly wanted a consumer device. However, your procurement team may have worried that the devices would be too fragile to work all day everyday indoors, let alone on the road with drivers; fragility that could lead to a high degree of failures. But now, things are easier. 

With online sales projected to top $20 trillion by 2020 , demand for delivery services is rising. Growth comes with challenges – customers are pressing for ever faster delivery, environmental and compliance legislation are changing constantly, automation is set to radically disrupt things and agile competitors are circling. With a greater need to help teams and drivers work more effectively mobile devices, that were initially rolled out to provide proof of delivery (PoD), could be doing much more.

 

Business productivity begins and ends with worker productivity. You want your people performing at their very best, working as quickly, efficiently, and productively as they can.

Let’s start with some good news. It’s considered best practice when deploying mobile devices, such as handheld computers and printers, to install Mobile Device Management (MDM) toolsets in parallel. MDM is essential in increasing efficiencies to configure and deploy mobile devices, update associated software, enable triage (to cut the length of service desk calls), support remote repairs and find common faults – all of which, over a typical three-year device life cycle, cut ownership costs.

But, here’s the kicker.  

I was at a premium car manufacturer recently, and sitting on a table close to the line-side were about 15 handheld scanners. I assumed these were for pool use. But no, it turns out they were damaged and were being collected for repair. Thankfully the devices weren’t Zebra’s.

That table testified to a fact of life – that in busy environments, such as distribution centres, warehouses and plants, life’s tough on technology.