Industry Need

In today’s fast paced retail environment, to remain competitive and profitable it is important that retailers and brand owners have a high level of real time visibility of inventory throughout the supply chain and including the retail shelf itself. Accurately tracking products from the manufacturer and through the DC’s in combination with a good alignment with backroom replenishment processes are critical in addressing and improving operational concerns such as inventory related costs associated with cycle stock and safety stock levels.

To be successful in managing inbound and outbound operations as well as in stock and out of stock inventory, retailers must have a way to streamline their processes that will enable them to improve operations and efficiencies on all levels with the end result of increased sales and revenue. Major retailers are looking at multiple areas in their supply chain and at store levels that the integration of RFID into these operations could provide opportunities to make significant gains in speed and accuracy as well as multi-channel inventory management.

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Printer media can often be an overlooked part of any printing application which can lead to some inefficiencies and added costs. Many businesses use both desktop and industrial printers or end up migrating from one to the other as their printing needs increase. Both types of printers use different label rolls which normally are not cross compatible. This is where the media flexibility of the Intermec PM23c can make ordering media and migrating to a higher duty cycle printer easier. With the ability to accept multiple roll core sizes and types, it’s one printer that you can grow with and ensure any label roll you use will work.

The new Intermec CN51 has been designed specifically for the mobile workforce. Rugged enough to withstand the rigors of any environment but still compact and feature rich to keep you connected to the resources you need, the CN51 provides a superior user experience. For any business that relies on mobile workers, having the most capable tools in their hands ensures the success of any application.

Overview
One is met with attractive scents upon entering the shop. The colorful shelves full of bright and beautiful packages invite the customer to take a look around. The wonderful fragrances, creams and cosmetics found throughout the shop add that extra touch to make any occasion special. Stadt-Parfümerie Pieper (Pieper Perfume Shops) emanates everything that exemplifies beauty and well-being. It is the largest family-owned retail perfume and cosmetics company in Germany with one hundred and twenty shops spread out across the country. It offers all the top international brands of cosmetics, fragrances, skin care and make-up products.

The Challenge
The extensive range of products pleases the customer’s eye, but when it’s time for inventory, the many small packages found in the perfume shops can pose a daunting challenge. Stadt-Parfümerie Pieper wanted to automate its time-consuming and error-prone manual inventory procedure to assure accuracy. A variety of factors were taken into consideration: which hardware is right for us? To what point can the software be personalized? What kind of solution do we need regarding existing workflows?

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As a long standing POS printer manufacturer, Epson has provided some of the most capable and flexible printers in the market. The most common need at the POS for printing is usually a basic customer receipt, but handling things like checks, deposit slips, prescriptions, and returns will require a multi-functional printer like the TM-H600iv. These types of printers have multiple means to print on externally feed documents making them the perfect all-in-one solution for financial institutions, pharmacies, and general retail applications.

Understanding the differences between the 3 types of printing (Endorsement, Slip, and Validation) can be confusing at first but we’ve broken it down in these simple definitions and included diagram.

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Printronix has built a reputation for building top-of-the-line line matrix and thermal barcode printers and is doing the same with their superb line of RFID printers which are becoming some of the top devices in the RFID industry.

What makes the Printronix RFID printers, the SL5000r and SL4M,  unique is their ability to incorporate Online Data Validation (ODV) to their RFID printing solution. ODV technology ensures that all barcodes being printed are meeting the most stringent standards set by vendors such as Walmart and the Department of Defense. Maintaining compliance prevents hefty fines that can range up to $20 per box plus the cost to rework, pack and ship the corrected boxes. Thus, a return on investment for a Printronix RFID printer can be achieved on as a little as one poorly labeled shipment.

To learn more about the Printronix RFID printer or how ODV works, please contact one of our Barcodes Inc RFID experts.

It has been over 40 years since the first RFID device was patented. In its early stages, it was seen as unreliable and far too expensive to adopt over barcode technology. However, more recently companies are starting to adopt RFID technology due to its improvements in readability and cost effectiveness. With these enhancements, companies are seeing the benefits of RFID over barcodes. For example, organizations conducting inventory counts or accounting for high value assets using barcode technology must scan each barcode individually, which requires a considerable amount of time and resources. Whereas RFID readers allow for mass data capture. Additionally, RFID provides real-time, accurate data, which offers tremendous advantages in several industries.

One facet of RFID that has helped simplify the technology and lower the costs is RFID printing. Instead of investing in more costly RFID tags that are typically overkill, companies have found that RFID labels (“Smart Labels”), which are adhesive labels embedded with RFID inlays, are suitable for their requirements. Thus, organizations have the freedom to print their own RFID labels by investing in a RFID printer and RFID label software, both of which have the ability to print barcodes too.

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Seagull Scientific’s Bartender has gained notoriety for providing the best label design software on the market. However, Bartender RFID includes the same label design features, along with encoding capabilities that offer the same ease of use. Bartender RFID Enterprise Automation and Automation’s rich feature sets include supporting most of the popular RFID printers, supporting most of the label types available (Gen2, EPC Class 1, ISO 15693, etc.) and allows data to be encoded in most of the common formats (DoD, SSCC, GIAI, etc.).

Seagull Scientific continues to lead the way in innovation when it comes to barcode and RFID printing software. Consequently, Barcodes Inc recommends Bartender RFID in our RFID printing systems in order to provide a low cost, quality solution.

For more assistance finding the right RFID printing software for your needs, contact us at Barcodes Inc.

Scanning barcodes has become such a standard and integrated part of many businesses it is easy to think that all scanners are essentially the same. While this may have been more true in the past with traditional laser scanners, recent advances in imaging technologies have brought expanded capabilities to scanners without increases in costs.

The same type of hardware that is being used for cameras in smartphones and tablets is also being used to make better barcode scanners. These new scanner types are called imagers since they are essentially capturing a picture of the barcode and then decoding it. Historically, imagers have been quite a bit more costly than a standard laser scanner but with new units like the Motorola LI2208, we now have imaging scanners at the same cost as a laser scanner.

So what exactly are the advantages of moving to an imager based scanner exactly?

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Intermec has many software-based Imaging Solutions that enable automated data collection when only letters and numbers are present. These imaging solutions take advantage of the enhanced scan engine, camera and optical character recognition(OCR) capabilities present in many Intermec mobile computers. Imaging Solutions are designed to promote the paperless workflow process and improve yard operations.

Scanning Intermodal Container or shipping container codes is one of the imaging solutions offered by Intermec. The ultra-rugged Intermec CK71 mobile computer, with the extended range EX25 scan engine, can withstand the harsh port conditions and long distance scans. The underlying OCR engine was developed in a common language for ease of integration with other applications.

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