Case Studies - Transportation and Distribution Industries

Problem

The customer is the leading answer for those extreme expedited situations that often require exclusive-use vehicles. As a seamless transportation and distribution system, they have over 35 company-operated facilities reaching 80 percent of the U.S. population. The customer ships thousands of mill rolls of carpet throughout the United States on a monthly basis. It is essential to the operation that the carpet is brought into the distribution center, staged, and shipped out to the customer in a time sensitive manner. In some cases carpet is delivered to the distribution center and shipped out within the hour.

Label printing is a crucial part of their identification and shipping process. Hundreds of rolls of carpet have to be labeled for color identification, type of carpet, size, lot number, and a barcode is printed on the label for tracking and identification purposes. If the labels are not printed on time the truck leaves and the carpet has to wait for the next truck. The customer was starting to experience delayed shipments due to slow label printing by their legacy system. They required a faster, more efficient way to produce barcode labels.

Solution

The customer needed a faster way to print labels than they were currently using. Their employees would sometimes have to wait in line to get the labels they needed to identify their shipment of carpet before it was shipped.

Miles Technologies, Inc. suggested they consider a solution using the B-SX4 barcode label printer at a midrange price. The TEC B-SX4 printers were installed in one of the customer's largest distribution facilities in order to improve the timely delivery of goods to their customers.

They also required a fast and efficient way to deploy these label printers throughout their US distribution centers. They didn't want to run cable for the traditional wired connectivity so they choose 802.11b. Because the B-SX4 is feature rich it also accommodates an internal 802.11b
RF card inside the printer. This resulted in quicker deployment and the units could be moved to different locations as required without running expensive cabling to the printers.

Benefits

The customer now has a faster label printing system utilizing 802.11b connectivity in the distribution center. The
use of these printers has increased productivity, increased onetime shipments and provided the flexibility and
mobility of RF connectivity.

Miles Value Add

The Miles Sales and Technical Team worked together to design a custom solution to meet the customer's needs.
The combined experience included: print and label technology, inventory management systems, and certified
wireless consultants. This resulted in the customer having a single point of contact across the various skills and
products required for a successful integrated solution.

Solution Included

TEC Printer, Miles Professional Services, Electronic Media Ordering System

For more information

Call us at 1-800-783-2132.