ERS DUPLICATOR TECHNOLOGY PROVIDES SIMPLE SOLUTION FOR UK MANUFACTURER OF FISHING AND ANGLING EQUIPMENT

It's the simplest problems which are often left unsolved, requiring organisations to find suitable ‘work-arounds'. These work-arounds can often be somewhat inefficient or at worst may lead to the introduction of errors which would otherwise not be present.

In the case of a leading UK manufacturer of angling and fishing equipment the simple problem was to find an efficient method by which the serial numbers of electronic Bite Alarms could be logged for warranty purposes when despatched to the Distributors and Wholesalers worldwide.

The problem was that traditionally the serial number for each item had not been reproduced on the outer packaging for that item; and since product was despatched from stock this meant that every item would have to be removed from the packaging in order to note the serial no.

A stand-alone solution was required which would not impose a significant impact on production times, but which would allow the Serial number of each item to be reproduced on the outer packaging for use when despatching the product.

THE SOLUTION

The solution came in 2 parts:

The 1^st part was to install an ERS Barcode Duplicator at the final stage of production. As the product is packaged the Duplicator is used to read the barcoded serial number label on the product thereby instantly generating a duplicate barcoded serial number label which is then fixed to the outer packaging.

The 2^nd part of the solution was to provide a portable data collection device to allow the Despatch personnel to scan the serial numbers of items being shipped.

The manufacturer chose the compact CPT8000 terminal with built-in barcode scanner. The CPT8000 is a fully programmable device and was supplied by ERS pre-loaded with applications software requiring the operator to enter the invoice reference for each shipment followed by the product type and serial numbers of items included in the shipment. Every serial number scanned is automatically date and time tagged by the terminal.

Since real-time transmission of serial number data to the host system was not required the CPT8000 terminal chosen was a simple 'batch' device providing 2MB of non-volatile memory for storage of the Despatch ‘transactions'.

A simple-to-use utility program was also provided to download the stored despatch data and serial numbers to a host PC from time-to-time, as required. The utility software then writes the collected data to an Excel spreadsheet or MS-ACCESS database from where it is available for further processing and reporting.

THE BENEFITS

Using the Barcode Duplicator means that products are now held in stock with the product serial number reproduced in barcode form on the outer packaging.

This has allowed the serial number of every item being despatched to be captured together with the relevant Despatch reference, product type and date/ time of despatch.

With no complex interfacing to existing back office systems, implementation was largely a matter of unpacking the solution, installing the PC utility software and turning the equipment on allowing the benefits to be felt almost immediately.

For Further information contact ERS now on 01234 855300 or e-mail sales@ersltd.co.uk