15% reduction in warehouse labor costs with Zebra Technologies and Crave InfoTech

End-consumer needs are increasing along with their demand. This means that with the increase in consumption, the particulars of how it’s delivered and consumed are also increasing. Consumers want faster and fully-tracked deliveries adding to the whole experience. 

How can the warehouse add to this experience? Warehouse managers can ensure that all incoming and outgoing goods are tracked at every transactional event and the data is synced with the system in real-time. This would provide the supply-chain stakeholders with live visibility of all goods moving through the warehouse. 

The same applies to inventory management. The warehouses can ensure that inventory counting is faster, more accurate, and synced with the system in real-time to give beat-by-beat updates to all stakeholders. 

Moving to the specifics of the solution, how would these warehouse managers go about doing or enabling this in their warehouses? 

Crave InfoTech has a long-standing partnership with Zebra Technologies. Zebra Technologies is a globally renowned company. They offer industry-leading computing devices, scanners, antennas (RFID), smart glasses, portable printers, and other sensors for faster and more accurate:  

• picking and put away, 
• inventory counting, 
• streamlined activities like sorting, packaging, loading, unloading, etc., 
• on-floor label printing with barcodes/QR codes, and more. 

Zebra Technologies have been doing this for 50+ years, evolving to keep at the helm of RFID technology, computing devices, and automation. 

Crave InfoTech has deep expertise in supply chain and warehousing. The company is also in a strategic partnership with SAP. This gives Crave the wherewithal to create industry-ready pre-configured products for extended warehouse management. That’s exactly what Crave InfoTech offers. 

Crave’s cEWM is a pre-packed app for the automation of all inbound, outbound, and internal processes in a warehouse. 

• It’s built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). 
• It’s RFID-enabled with QR/barcode scanning. 
• It works online and offline with equal efficiency. 
• It’s multi-platform, multi-lingual, and deployment-ready. 
• It has SAP Fiori-based UI/UX for faster adoption and ease of use. 
• It comes pre-configured with streamlined Workflow/processes for all activities within the warehouse. 

Crave InfoTech’s cEWM can be used with Zebra Technologies computing devices and scanners. The app works with multiple dimensions as that of tablets or smartphones. 

The Zebra Tech hardware is rugged and smart. The user can carry and use them in all sections of the warehouse no matter the conditions. They are designed to sustain all usage scenarios. This means that these devices are easy to use in all conditions and last for a long time. More importantly, they ‘consistently perform’ with little-to-no maintenance over a long period. 

With the Zebra hardware combined with Crave InfoTech’s cEWM, the user has the ability to do their work from anywhere, anytime. The manager can assign jobs/tasks and they would appear in the operator’s device and app instantly on the go. The manager can sequence jobs to maximize the time and effort of the operator. The operator can easily switch between jobs or activities within the cEWM app. 

Learning or training is an important aspect of the warehouse. The workforce may change over time. Sometimes, the manager may employ a temporary workforce to handle the volume load in the warehouse. So, learning on the job is a desired feature in any solution. 

cEWM has pre-configured and streamlined Workflow for all activities in the warehouse. The operator can simply follow the intuitive UI and Workflow to perform the activity from start to end without any help. This makes it easy to do multiple tasks with easy switchovers. 

Crave InfoTech has enabled RFID and automation in multiple warehouses across the world for multiple industries. Crave utilizes Zebra Technologies hardware to transform the activities into an automated version of themselves. 

The operators use the Zebra scanners with Crave’s interface to directly capture all details of the units, racks, bins, forklifts, and handling units. The operator doesn’t have to manually add any info into the system. All info is captured at source with the handheld scanners or in-device cameras. 

This means that the accuracy of data capture and system inputs is increased by close to 100%. There’s no human error. 

Even while performing the activity, the operator can scan the code of the unit or bin. This would pull all the relevant data from the system (about the item) into Crave’s cEWM app. It pre-fills all relevant fields within the Workflow. This saves a lot of time for the operators. 

Right from the point where the goods come in, through the packing or repacking in handling units, and the put-away – all activities use scanners to record all updates in real-time. The managers know the status and location of each unit in the warehouse at all times. 

As mentioned earlier, Crave’s app works online and offline with equal efficiency. This means the app would function with all features as expected even when there’s no network coverage. The app would simply sync all data when the device comes back into the coverage area. 

At times, the warehouse is so large with different dedicated storage sections with different storage requirements (for example – a temperature-controlled section). These sections might not have proper network coverage. The app switches seamlessly from online to offline without the loss of any ongoing process info. It’s totally secure. 

Continuing on the point of RFID enablement – Zebra scanners and Crave’s cEWM help automate and streamline inventory counting and management. The user can point and scan (even from a distance for an item on a higher rack) the details of any item in a second. They can also swipe across multiple items to instantly scan all the items in one go. This is a Crave feature. 

All info is updated in the system and is available for the decisions and actions of the managers/stakeholders. 

cEWM has helped reduce: 

• 50% in maintenance costs, 
• 35% in warehouse operating costs, and 
• 15% in labor costs. 

That’s the impact of Crave InfoTech along with Zebra Technologies. If you want to have Zebra hardware in your warehouses – just drop in a message.