Every item one by one. A thousand times a day.
Pick up, turn until the label is in view, beep, put down. Six seconds each time, and it does not feel like a problem because it never takes longer than six seconds. At eight hundred actions a day it is a problem.
The question is not whether it can be faster, but whether bulk registration works in your process.
Sound familiar?
Manual scanning stands out as soon as you add it up per day.
- At receiving, every box goes under the scanner separately.
- Someone has to turn or move items to get at the label.
- Checking an order for completeness takes longer than the picking itself.
- When it gets busy, scans are skipped and posted later from memory.
- Damaged or dirty labels have to be typed in by hand.
What it costs
What the scan itself costs
Actions per day
Seconds per scan
Working days
Per year
307 hours
Calculated with euros per hour, and with the share of the theoretical gain you actually achieve:
- Conservative
- 123 hours5,520 euros per year
- Expected
- 184 hours8,280 euros per year
- Potential
- 245 hours11,040 euros per year
Worked example based oneight hundred scans a day of six seconds, across 230 working days. Only the scan action itself, without the walking, searching and correcting around it. Not a measurement at a customer. The numbers are adjustable: put your own situation in and the outcome follows along.
From one by one, to in bulk
RFID does not need line of sight. That is the whole difference: nothing has to come into view.
01 / Labeling at the right moment
Usually at inbound, on the outer box, the pallet or the carrier. If the label goes on too late, the gain further down the flow is gone. This is the most important design choice.
02 / Reading without aiming
A handheld reads a whole pallet in one pass. At a doorway or a tunnel it happens by itself while the goods move past.
03 / Checking against what should be there
STOCKflow puts read next to expected. If something is missing, you see it at the dock instead of at the customer.
The main objection
Common objection
“Does bulk registration really work in our process?”
Sometimes it does not, and that is an honest answer. A pallet of cardboard boxes in film usually reads excellently. A pallet of metal sheets or stacked liquids reads badly to not at all. Which one applies to you depends on the product, the stacking and the position of the label. That is why we test it on your goods before anything is ordered, and not after.
What it does and what it does not do
What it does and what it does not do
Wel
- Reading hundreds of tags at once, without line of sight to the label
- Reading through cardboard, film and packaging
- Registering automatically at doorways, docks and tunnels
- Putting read next to expected, right at the action
Niet
- Working without a labeling moment: something has to go on the goods
- Reading reliably with liquids, metal and tightly stacked film without adjustment
- Reading something that sits fully shielded behind other material
- Determining the contents of a box if only the box is labeled
Bulk registration sounds simpler than it is. Whether it works for you depends on what is in the box, how tightly the goods are stacked and where the label sits. That is not a brochure question, that is a test question.
How we prove it: a small, paid Proof of Value
One process, one type of carrier. We label temporarily at inbound and measure the time per action and the number of missed registrations.
Scope
- One inbound or outbound process
- One type of box, pallet or carrier
- Temporary labeling at inbound
- A handheld or a simple fixed setup
- Readability and label placement are assessed separately
Go or no-go
You get the read rate per situation, including where it disappointed. If bulk registration turns out not to be reliable enough in your process, that goes in the report and it stops there.
Frequently asked questions
Can we keep our barcodes?
Yes. Barcode and RFID run alongside each other fine, and the handhelds read both. You put RFID where bulk or line of sight is the bottleneck, and leave barcode where it does its job well.
Who sticks on all those labels?
In the Proof of Value we do it temporarily by hand, on one flow. When you scale up it usually goes through a printer that prints and applies the label at inbound, or through suppliers who deliver already labeled.
What if one tag is not read?
Then you see it, because read stands against expected. That is the difference with manual scanning: a skipped scan only shows up there at the count, an unread tag shows up here at the action.
What does a label cost?
A simple paper label costs a few cents. A label for metal, or for a carrier that comes back hundreds of times, costs many times that but also lasts far longer. Which one you need follows from the test.