28 01732 759725 AUTOMATION the barcode of each item individually can dramatically speed up stock-taking. Other areas of investment highlighted by the survey of 1,400 warehouse workers and decision-makers include: n Inventory management. Nearly 80% of those surveyed cite inaccurate inventory and ‘out of stocks’ as a drain on productivity, with 94% of European decision-makers planning to invest in technology to increase visibility across the supply chain by 2028. n Warehouse automation. More than two thirds (69%) of warehouse decisionmakers have automated or are planning to automate workflows by 2024 to reduce errors, boost productivity and enable warehouse workers to be redeployed in more customer-centric, high-value tasks. n Intelligence. More than half of surveyed decision-makers plan to implement machine learning (52%) and predictive analytics (59%) in their facilities by 2028. As a global market leader in label printing, mobile computing and scanning, Zebra Technologies and its worldwide network of 10,000-plus resellers are well placed to help not only logistics companies achieve their aims but organisations in other sectors that are investing in technology to digitise their operations and remove the waste, inaccuracies and inefficiency of manual processes. Experience centre Technology Reseller gained insight into some of the ways Zebra is doing this when it visited the Zebra Experience Centre (ZEC) at the company’s Bourne End EMEA HQ. Opened six years ago, this facility provides a showcase for the company’s expanding portfolio of products and solutions, including barcode/label/ receipt/card printers, supplies (off-theshelf and custom-made labels and chips), barcode scanners, mobile computers/ tablets, wearables, retail software and machine vision solutions. A series of tableaux illustrating applications of the devices (and supporting technologies like RFID) in healthcare, retail & hospitality, transportation & logistics, manufacturing and field mobility reinforce how ubiquitous Zebra devices have become in an era of digital transformation and process automation. They also show the extent to which Zebra devices, supplies, technologies and software (and solutions from third-party ISVs) all work together to boost efficiency and minimise waste. This has been a key driver for the company since 2014 when it acquired the enterprise business of Motorola Solutions, supplementing its barcode scanner/printer business with the latter’s scanners, mobile computers and associated technologies, notably RFID and asset tracking, enabling it to offer complete end-to-end solutions for the first time. “We provide the labels and the cards; we provide the printers that can print or encode them; and we provide the mobile computers, barcode readers and antennas that will scan them,” said Reynolds. In the last 10 years Zebra has built on this capability with further acquisitions including those of Temptime, a manufacturer of colour-changing technology for labelling time/temperaturesensitive food and medicine; retail software company Reflexis Systems; consumer packaged goods and retail AI demand forecasting platform Antuit; machine vision company Adaptive Vision; and Matrox Imaging. Reynolds points out that for this reason Zebra likes to focus on applications and the business case when engaging with customers, rather than taking a productled approach. “With our printers, for example, we don’t refer to printing so much as asset identification and tracking. Mostly what we are doing is applying labels to assets for those purposes – boxes, pallets, PCB boards, you name it. And we don’t just do printing; our devices can encode data onto magstripes and RFID chips as well. Zebra is really all about building the business case to become more efficient and effective.” Reynolds cites a case Zebra is working on for a large UK retailer that highlights the benefits of switching to linerless (backingfree) labels to remove a large volume of material from the waste stream. Fifty years after the invention of radio frequency identification (RFID), could 2023 be the year when the technology really takes off? Phil Reynolds, EMEA Desktop Print Product Manager at Zebra Technologies, certainly thinks so. He told Technology Reseller that demand for RFID technology was ‘growing exponentially’ as the cost of chips falls and their capability goes up. “The other thing that’s driving adoption of RFID is the rise of omnichannel, where customers might buy online and select home delivery or choose to pick up items in-store, and perhaps return them in-store as well. No longer is it a case of the warehouse holding the stock and the store selling the stock. “To be agile, you need visibility and traceability. You need to know where your stock is, and RFID can give you that in almost real-time,” he said. Reynolds’ analysis is borne out by Zebra’s newly published 2023 Global Warehousing Study and associated survey in which 58% of warehouse decision-makers said they plan to deploy RFID technology by 2028 to locate and track assets, people and goods and to address key operational challenges in warehouse environments. Foremost amongst these is returns management, cited by 43% of warehouse decision-makers in Europe – up 12 percentage points compared to the 2022 study. RFID chips within labels also have productivity benefits in retailers’ bricks and mortar outlets, for example by enabling shop staff to use a Zebra scanner or mobile computer to scan all items within range simultaneously. Not having to scan Zebra devices have become ubiquitous in an era of digital transformation and process automation, says James Goulding Here, there and everywhere
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