Just as the holiday season got underway just over a month ago, NASA’s InSight Mars Lander became the latest successful attempt by we earthlings to explore our universe a bit more. The scenes of the landing and the operation of the Lander itself were inspiring. And the mission – dedicated to investigating the deep interior of Mars – is ambitious, even though just getting there may have seemed ambitious enough. But have you ever thought about one of the unsung hero details of this operation? There are actual LABELS on Mars now!

While it is easy for those of us in the industry to convey the impression that RFID has already taken over the world when it was (and of course, still IS) fighting its way into the mainstream of management visibility, it’s nice to see the evolution of the last decade finally get the attention of the boardroom with headlines like this:

We want to share this in case you are in the midst of a potential purchase or upgrade of Zebra equipment. In line with other manufacturers, there will be significant price increases for some products from January 7th, 2019, due in part to the onset of tariffs imposed by the United States on some Chinese manufactured products. 

IMPORTANT DEADLINE:

If you are planning to acquire more equipment including any of the items impacted below, please contact us today. Orders for 2019 generally need to placed no later than Monday, December 3rd, 2018.

How New Printer Technologies Will Expand Your Capabilities and Cut Costs

Even the best reader technology and tags won’t always let you see what’s going on in your facility. While “readability issues” was once a reason not to deploy RFID, there are not many areas left where this is still an issue that hasn’t been solved. Here are a few of the innovations that have changed the degree in which readability still factors as an issue.

A 2012 Report by the Institute of Medicine estimated that the US Healthcare system wastes approximately $750 BILLION per year. While the biggest part of that is “Unnecessary services,” other factors such as “Fraud,” “Inefficient Care Delivery” and “Excess Administrative Costs” are all equally alarming regarding the potential harm they could do to both individual patients and trust in the systems we rely on as well.

RFID has found its way into nearly every industry and every part of the supply chain. But common misperceptions about its extensibility continue to persist, as imaginations for its use have not kept pace with some of the capabilities and it's steadily decreasing the cost to implement. But as the cost and variety of tags get more diverse every day, so do the potential applications.

While techniques to maintain and track inventory under a roof are well-established and somewhat ubiquitous, outdoor storage still lags in performance as many businesses ignore some of the basic rules that they followed when setting up their warehouse. While the warehouse space might be packed with advanced scanning and conveyor equipment, high bay racks served by aisle pickers and perhaps even robots, outdoor areas tend to suffer from lack of attention to the same level of precision and order that is valued in the warehouse.

In this article, we will discuss outdoor storage by differentiating between simple bulk storage facilities and yard management facilities, which are used to store containers, trailers, and trucks.

Before You Buy – A Must Read Before June 30^th

Earlier this year, Verizon Wireless announced the following:

“beginning July 1, 2018 (this year) dealers will no longer be able to activate any CDMA data only devices, and any non HD/Volte phone devices, including swaps.”

This means exactly what is says – any 3G device you have purchased but not yet activated will not be able to activated after this weekend. This is part of a larger CDMA phase-out being executed by all carriers over the next two years.

On a recent visit to a global metalworks facility on the East Coast, our team discovered something that forgers and steel operations, which are known for a work environment dealing with extreme heat, have in common with cold storage and frozen operations. 

At first glance, you would assume that there is nothing these two environments have in common. After all, no one packs a bag the same way for a ski vacation and a beach vacation. And if challenged to identify a common solution between an ice cream storage facility and a rolled steel mill, we’d probably be hard-pressed to think of one. But there is a big one.

What they have in common is Gloves.