10 Tips to Improve Your Bottom Line While Maximizing Your ROI

With the sluggish economy affecting the bottom line of businesses around the country, companies are scouring their organization’s supply chain and IT infrastructure for potential cost saving opportunities. While cutting costs is crucial for many organizations in these times, so is ensuring that changes do not negatively impact operations.

Throughout 2011 and beyond, expenditures must produce short to medium term return on investment. Your company’s supply chain and related RF infrastructure offers opportunities to leverage the efficiencies and cost reductions realized through automating applications and improving operational efficiency. 

Consider the following when looking for changes that will have the biggest impact on your bottom line:

1. RF Enable Key Business Processes

Paper-based business processes in the supply chain are inefficient and error prone. Improved data accuracy is the single most common motivation for implementing a bar code/RF system. For organizations in which data entry errors can be catastrophic, the goal is 100% accuracy. 

Implementing a barcode/RF system is the best tool to ensure data credibility and thereby greatly reduce the impact of human error. Besides providing near-perfect accuracy, bar code/RF systems also enable users to work faster, without sacrificing accuracy. Depending on the application being automated, many Auto ID systems pay for themselves in six to twelve months, for faster ROI and supply chain cost reductions.  

2. Automate Your Labeling Process & Reduce Manual Labor

Automating label application in the warehouse reduces or eliminates the need for manual labeling, and the cost associated with resources to perform that task. Automating labeling processes enable organizations to re-allocate resources to higher value tasks. It also reduces the risk of improperly placed labels that can cause supply chain bottlenecks or automated product rejections that lead to manual intervention and costly work-arounds or down time.

3. Moving Beyond the Barcode - Consider New Technology Solutions 

Voice logistics and RFID solutions have moved from emerging, niche technologies to real world applications. Voice-enabled logistics solutions make applications such as picking, receiving, put-away, replenishment and order checker faster, easier and more natural. Voice solutions allow workers to conduct their work hands-free to ensure maximum productivity and safety. 

RFID solutions to manage and track high value assets are one of the best-kept secrets in supply chain automation. When utilized properly, RFID technology ensures that supply chain logistics are fully optimized and real-time management of container resources or other high value assets is efficient and cost-effective. Without RFID technology, misplacing or losing one high value asset probably occurs to most companies with some degree of frequency. Implementing an RFID system can reduce the loss of high value assets to drive immediate returns!

4. Upgrade Your Aging Wireless and Printing Technology

Since the late 1980’s, Auto ID technology has been experiencing a product life cycle decline. Through a series of standardizations and technology updates, the lifetime for Auto ID devices has gone from an 8 to 10-year cycle to a 2 to 3-year cycle. Legacy infrastructure components adopted in the past 4-5 years, such as switches, access points, ports, and components, as well as wireless and printing equipment are currently or will soon be at the end of life. 

Because newer technology is becoming more prevalent, service offered for these older products is also shrinking and the window of availability for replacement parts is closing. Users of older technology can’t easily get the parts required to repair or replace products to ensure their data collection and printing systems are up and running at optimum efficiency. Not only is it hard to get the products; servicing these legacy systems is also increasingly difficult and more expensive. In addition, older wireless and printing  technology doesn’t support new features and functions that are proving to be so valuable to supply chain operations. 

5. Centralize RF Device Software Updating and Training

Making sure your RF handheld devices are updated and in-synch can prevent lost labor time and down time in your operations. Use remote device management software to make certain all devices, in every location, have the latest software – automatically, when loaded into charging racks. You can even use a remote device management platform to remotely train users on new software, stepping them through simulations of new features and applications without having to schedule special training or incur unnecessary travel costs to send IT staff to each location.

 6. Label Inventory Management & Cost Reduction Programs

Reducing on-site label and printing supply inventories can offer significant savings for most organizations. Committing to larger quantities of printing supplies but receiving orders just-in-time while reducing your costly inventory levels at each facility can reduce your overall unit costs. Another not so obvious cost when considering your overall total cost of ownership of printing supplies can be reducing your shipping and handling costs. An experienced label consultant can help your company consolidate the number of different label types to gain economies of scale and volume pricing, standardize label and ribbon combinations, establish just in time reorder points, and divert label production to label converting facilities closer to your company’s key facilities to greatly reduce freight costs.

7. Protect Mission Critical Supply Chain Equipment with Service Contracts

Today’s complex technology forms an essential part of mission-critical operations that must deliver maximum uptime. Less than optimal performance can reduce revenue, erode customer confidence, damage trading partner relationships, and lead to expensive workarounds. During times of flat or reduced budgets, companies are caught in a vise. They need to manage spending carefully without compromising smooth flowing operations.

Service Contracts offer a way to optimize the performance of essential supply chain equipment while controlling cost. They can extend the life of equipment while helping companies manage cash flow better. Service contracts also free internal resources while making expert knowledge available through a service provider.

8. Single Source Vendor Relationships

Selecting a single-source provider for barcode, printing, RF data collection, printing supplies and related products and services makes sense for any company who would rather focus their time and resources on their primary core products as opposed to the support, management and maintenance required by internal staff to manage multiple hardware and software vendor relationships. 

A single-source supplier can help you eliminate the resource time spent on managing multiple vendors, as well as the cost of installing and managing measurement systems from multiple vendors. Take advantage of PEAK Technologies’ expertise as a leader in the Auto-ID industry and you free up those resources to focus on your core mission.

9. No CAPEX Budget – Consider Leasing!

PEAK leasing programs offer the most flexible and cost-effective way for customers to enjoy the benefits of advanced technology today, while remaining within budgetary constraints and guarding against obsolescence. Leasing programs can be specifically designed to meet customers’ ever changing technological and financial needs. Your cash position, short-and long-term business strategies, and competitive environment all play a role in your decision. For many businesses, leasing provides key advantages over cash purchases, including: conserving capital, preserving bank lines, battling budget limitations, fighting inflation, and reducing technology obsolescence. 

10. Manage Warehouse Labor Costs

Ask any warehouse manager, "what is the most difficult cost to control?" and the answer will invariably be labor. Labor costs comprise the largest part of a warehouse's operating expenses. The ongoing challenge is managing those costs without jeopardizing customer service and reducing productivity.