Think you have a busy warehouse? Meet Supply Chain Santa.
His warehouse contains billions of toys. He probably employs thousands of elves to receive, pick, stage, and load.
And, like you, he’s got a tight deadline—his customers are not too thrilled with late deliveries.
So, we thought it would be a great idea to review his operations and imagine what technology he uses to keep track of this massive operation.
Supply Chain Santa’s Visibility Challenges
You laugh now, but Supply Chain Santa has many of the same challenges you face. Many think he’s just a seasonal operation, but imagine how complicated it is to store and move toys for 2 billion children around the world.
The North Pole runs 365 days a year, and it used to be a daily struggle. Supply Chain Santa has suffered from inaccuracies at the shipping door and weak inventory control. He’s lost sleep thinking about how to keep control over labor-intensive operations.
Like you, he needs the most efficient way to get clear visibility and deep insights into his operations. A few years ago, Santa realized RFID tagging was the answer to his problems.
Supply Chain Santa’s Asset Tracking History (in brief)
At one time, Santa was just like your warehouse or manufacturing operation: He wrestled with three choices to track his assets.
For hundreds of years, he did it manually. But Supply Chain Santa wised up and stopped relying on manual processes when barcode scanning became popular. He switched and armed his elves with enterprise-grade scanners from Zebra Technologies.
Barcoding worked for a while. It was better than keeping track manually, but it was a very labor-intensive process. When Supply Chain Santa used barcodes, his elves had to go around and scan every single item, one at a time. Each elf was tasked with scanning more than 20,000-plus toys. The scanning elves would, understandably, miss items. Entire pallets were stored in the wrong area of the North Pole warehouse, and no one could find them.
Then came RFID technology. Supply Chain Santa was introduced to the concept of Radio Frequency Identification thanks to his partnership with Zebra Technologies and Versona Systems. This system can broadcast data as an electromagnetic field. We’re sure that RFID is a big benefit to Supply Chain Santa’s warehouse.
RFID to the Rescue
Supply Chain Santa realized that RFID solutions would give him real-time asset visibility. He was able to streamline operations, maximize his assets, and eliminate errors with inventory and other data-capturing tasks.
With RFID technology, he now has his elves label or tag every asset received at the North Pole. When it comes time to capture data, elves can scan up to 200 RFID tags at the same time. The tags store up to 100 times more data than a barcode.
And his warehouse is busy and crowded, so the elves enjoy having the ability to let RFID readers read tags that are not visible. This allows them to track products from anywhere within a specified range.
Supply Chain Santa is a jolly guy, but he wants his inventory done with maximum efficiency and speed.
Let RFID Improve Your Warehouse
RFID can provide unparalleled accuracy and real-time data for your warehouse. It helps eliminate inefficiencies in inventory management that cost you money. Deploy it correctly, and RFID technology gives you an unmatched real-time asset tracking system.
So, how do you deploy RFID?
Our expertise here at Versona Systems lies in helping create the bridge between our client’s processes and the technologies needed to automate and enhance those processes. We can help you understand how RFID should fit into your company and what the benefits will be for you.
We recommend Zebra Technologies hardware. Zebra provides end-to-end RFID solutions for your needs, including printers, readers, and RFID tags or labels.
And if you want to see RFID in action, maybe if you stay up late on Christmas Eve you can catch Supply Chain Santa when he stops by. One thing to note: He’ll have a ZebraRFID reader attached to his sled.
Inventory management never stops—not for Versona, and not even for Santa.
CKH