Wireless Bar Code System

 
Wireless Bar Code System
A manufacturer in North America is a leading provider of bar code printers and supplies.
As part of the company’s goal to streamline processes within its manufacturing
plant and warehouse, a process improvement team applied the use of mobile handheld
bar code scanning and printing devices with the support of a wireless LAN
within its Central Distribution Center (CDC).
Before implementing the system, the CDC was experiencing inefficiencies because
clerks needed to walk back and forth between stacks of finished goods and a desktop
terminal used to determine a warehouse storage location for the items. The clerks
would collect information from the finished goods by writing it down on a piece of
paper, then walk to the terminal to query the company’s warehouse management
system for a recommended storage location. The clerk would write this location information
on a large label, walk back to the product, and affix the label to the product’s
container. Later, a forklift operator would come by and place the container in the correct
location on the warehouse floor. The process of walking back and forth between
the products and the terminal made inefficient use of the clerk’s time, which slowed
the movement of products through the plant.
The solution to this problem consists of Monarch Marking System’s DOS-based
Pathfinder Ultra RF handheld bar code scanner and printer, equipped with an Aironet
(now Cisco) 2.4GHz frequency hopping radio. Only one radio cell was necessary to
cover the area used to stage the finished goods. An Aironet 2.4GHz access point was
needed, though, to provide an interface for the existing ethernet network, which led
to the mainframe computer running the warehouse management system. With this
collection of components, the clerk can now scan the finished product’s bar code,
which is used to query the warehouse management system for a valid put-away location,
then print a label indicating the applicable location information.
Through the use of the scan, print, and apply function, the solution eliminates the
need to walk back and forth to the terminal, increasing productivity by 50%. In addition,
the solution provides significant gains in accuracy through the elimination of
human error.