Importance of Barcoding and RFID in Manufacturing 

Today’s manufacturing environments are extremely busy and forever evolving for continuous improvement. Barcode labels, RFID tags, readers, scanners and data capture software all work together to provide a network of processes within manufacturing for improved productivity, accurate and timely information and cost efficiencies.

Below are a few key points outlining the benefits of barcoding and RFID, as well as a few examples of how manufacturers are implementing these technologies into their systems, and reaping the benefits of doing so.

1. increase accuracy and faster data entry, thus helping to ensure that orders ship complete, error-free, and on time, improving customer satisfaction. For example, Agron Inc., an official licensee for Adidas, utilizes Zebra Technologies’ R110Xi4 RFID printer/encoders in their manufacturing process. With RFID inlays spaced closer together than other printers, the R110Xi4 provides a lower cost per label, fewer media-roll changes and fast throughput. As the printer prints the human readable text and barcode on the face of the label, it also encodes the RFID inlay embedded in the label, providing an integrated solution with built-in error handling and scanning.


2. promotes known inventory and item location at all times, reducing product search time, improving inventory stocks and reducing excess, maximizing storage space, and enhancing manufacturing process control. The Motorola mobile computer and RFID readers, such as the MC3190-Z handheld RFID reader assists companies in achieving these efficiencies.


3. enhances compliance, improve work-in-process (WIP) productivity, and reduces finished goods cost; enables real-time monitoring of production, order fulfillment, and distribution processes; to help better meet demand levels and reduce inventory costs; and encourages real-time data capture via warehouse management systems (WMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Kimberly-Clark, a leading global health and hygiene company, has implemented this extremely successfully to support their high volume production lines. They installed and networked 4 Zebra R110Xi printer/encoders to produce RFID smart labels for outbound shipments proving that high volume and high reliability can go together within an RFID smart labeling system.

More and more manufacturers are discovering these advantages and reports suggest that global sourcing of the RFID market will continue to grow and expand even further in the next few years and reach $10 billion by 2020.1

For more information on these and other product lines and and to learn more about your options on all your printer, labeling and barcode scanning needs, call us as (800) 643-2664 and immediately talk to one of our friendly representatives; or chat us up on Facebook , Twitter , Google+ and LinkedIn !

Sources:
http://www.zebra.com/us/en/solutions/research-and-learn/success-stories/adidas.html
http://www.motorolasolutions.com/US-EN/Business+Product+and+Services/RFID
https://www.zebra.com/us/en/solutions/research-and-learn/success-stories/kimberly-clark.html
http://www.datamax-oneil.com/do/com/en-us/home/printers-software/stationary-printers/rfid-printers-encoders
How Barcode and RFID Solutions Can Improve Supply Chain Productivity – http://lowrysolutions.com/blog