Услуга · Equipment

Retail and industrial equipment

The main question when choosing such equipment is not the specification but the environment. Dust, damp, sub-zero warehouses, drops from chest height onto concrete: an ordinary scanner survives one season in those conditions, a rugged one several years.

Environment
dust, damp, frost
Codes
two-dimensional scanners
Records
exchange with the software
People
we train people to use it

What the work includes

We start with the process: who scans, at what moment, how many times a shift and where the data ends up.

Discuss the scope

Terminals

Goods-in, stocktaking, dispatch. For a cold store we take models rated down to sub-zero temperatures.

Scanners

Two-dimensional ones if labelled goods are in circulation. Linear scanners read only striped codes and cannot handle square ones.

Scales

Packing scales for the workshop and label-printing scales for loose goods on the shop floor.

Label printers

Direct thermal for the short term, thermal transfer for anything that will sit in the warehouse for a year.

Panels for production areas

Dust and moisture protected versions where an ordinary case clogs up within a month.

Link to the records

We configure the exchange so that what is scanned reaches the software without manual re-entry.

How it goes

The equipment itself arrives within a week; the bulk of the time goes on configuring the exchange and training.

01

Process

We walk the chain from unloading to dispatch and find the places where time is lost.

02

Selection

Models to match the environment, the volumes and the labelling requirements.

03

Setup

Connection, exchange with the records software, testing on real transactions.

04

Training

We show storekeepers and salespeople how to work with it. Otherwise the equipment ends up in a drawer.

Equipment that is awkward to use gets avoided by staff. If scanning adds extra movements, the storekeeper goes back to a scrap of paper and enters everything in one go in the evening, with mistakes. That is why the process must be designed together with the people who will work to it.

Questions and answers

A rugged model lasts three to five years in a warehouse; an ordinary smartphone in a case, about a season. The price difference pays for itself with the very first device that does not smash, if the warehouse is busy.

On the shop floor, models with label printing so the customer weighs the goods and gets a barcode. In the packing area, ordinary bench scales that pass the weight to the software. All scales used in settlements with customers must be verified.

Usually the issue is solved with an exchange driver or a tweak to the processing. It is worse when the program is homemade and undocumented: then we first work out how to get data into it at all, and only afterwards choose hardware.

We will pick equipment to fit the process

Describe how goods-in, storage and dispatch work. We will choose the equipment and set up the exchange.