The traditional warehouse runs on printouts, scraps of paper, Excel spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge held in the minds of the warehouse team. While it’s a good idea to track warehouse inventory data to some degree, relying solely on these outdated manual methodologies for tracking inventory leaves your internal business practices at the mercy of slow and inaccurate data collection methods riddled with errors. This means your enterprise could be operating inefficiently as it carries bloated spending, long turnaround times, and obsolete processes just to keep the business running.
Adopting a mobile barcoding solution could be the answer. In tying together automatic data collection (ADC), barcodes, mobile hardware and software, the right mobile barcoding solution can help your supply chain operation drive down wasted spend by providing major improvements in accuracy, efficiency, productivity, and profitability—without adding new infrastructure.
Through mobile barcoding technology, you can automate critical workflows in your business to create real-time visibility for inventory, warehouse, manufacturing and maintenance operations.
In short: Mobile barcoding can pay big dividends.
How?
1. Increase Data Accuracy from 50% to 99.99%
The Problem: Your warehouse runs on data. The more accurate your data is, the more perfect your team can fulfill customer wishes. But this also means the opposite is true. Every error in your warehouse process directly correlates to a loss in revenue. When customers receive the wrong items, that puts your company’s reputation—as well as customer trust—at risk.
Experts estimate that the accuracy of manual data collection processes does not exceed 60%.
The Solution: Mobile barcoding uses ADC to cut out manual data entry and opportunities for human error, driving significant increases in inventory data accuracy. While many adopters achieve 99% data accuracy, companies like CyberCore have reached an impressive 99.999% inventory data accuracy rate.
With accurate data, your organization not only delivers a higher level of customer service but is positioned to make better-informed business decisions to help you confidently commit to vendors, customer and stakeholders while remaining competitive.
2. Unlock Efficiencies, Drive Productivity & Throughput
The Problem: Every time one of your workers conducts a task manually, it takes time to complete. When multiple workers are performing these tasks hundreds or thousands of times per day, the completion time can drag out turnaround times by hours, days, or even weeks, reducing throughput and cutting into potential profits.
The Solution: Mobile barcoding helps automate high-frequency, repetitive manual tasks at maximum accuracy, greatly accelerating the amount of work each employee can handle. More efficient processes generate higher productivity without having to hire additional staff, enabling your team to process more volume, increase throughput and generate more revenue in the same amount of time. Mobile barcoding implementations frequently generate a 25% increase in efficiency and a 30% increase in productivity, if not more.
Higher yield in less time per labor cost dollar also enables you to restructure your workforce to further reduce labor costs and reallocate resources to more meaningful tasks.
3. Reduce Operating Costs
The Problem: As mentioned above, if your warehouse is using outdated manual processes to run the business, then those processes could be intruding on your budget. Why burden your daily operations with unnecessarily wasted spend and customer mistrust when solutions are available?
The Solution: Mobile barcoding can help. In addition to creating value through accuracy, efficiency and productivity gains, mobile barcoding creates a system of real-time inventory visibility, allowing your warehouse to reduce safety inventory and holding costs. Visibility can protect against stock-out scenarios from unanticipated shortages as well as over-stocking, supporting leaner operations.
Additionally, the ease of use associated with RFgen mobile software can cut costs by reducing training times for new and seasonal workers by up to 80% while providing a short ROI period.
Who would say ‘no’ to cost savings in direct labor, inventory, and working capital? Myers Tire Supply said ‘yes’ to all of these, achieving stellar benefits as a result.
4. Raise Customer Satisfaction
The Problem: Your customers aren’t satisfied with your service, no matter what you try. Maybe your warehouse struggles to get orders out on time. Are they plagued by delays in receiving, out-of-stock inventory or incorrect orders? Manual processes may be to blame.
The Solution: Mobile barcoding technology gives you the visibility, control, and automation your warehouse needs to minimize incorrect orders and charge-backs and deliver the highest level of customer service. Through barcoding and automation technology, you can put a stop to erosion of trust and brand, instead re-focusing your efforts on scalable growth and profitability.
5. Gain a Competitive Advantage
The Problem: With manual warehouse processes, you risk falling behind competitors already adopting mobile barcoding technology and warehouse automation. You also have no way to standardize and scale your operation. It could be only a matter of time before competitors leave you in the dust.
The Solution: Mobile barcoding digitizes and automates your processes, providing an unprecedented level of warehouse scalability compared to manual processes. Food manufacturer Clif Bar & Company introduced the RFgen mobile barcoding solution as part of their initiative to set the enterprise operation up for future scalability and growth—and maintain market dominance.
These are only some of the benefits supply chain companies can expect when implementing a new mobile barcoding technology in their enterprise. Automating inventory and warehouse workflows is critical to cutting costs. Increasing accuracy, efficiency, productivity and customer satisfaction levels can help you unearth potential cost savings in your current operation.
Want to learn more about mobile barcoding? Explore these mobile barcoding success stories.
