How to Get a New Arizona Facility Running Optimally in a Hurry
If you’re setting up a new warehouse or manufacturing facility in Arizona, you will want to make sure you’re being as efficient as possible in everything you do. With labor shortages, rising wages, and supply chain challenges, efficiency has become mission-critical for any business looking to maximize the value of a new facility investment.
In this article, we’ll take a look at a few crucial areas where new facilities should focus their efforts to optimize their operational efficiency. Plus, we’ll review some innovative ways that companies are making gains in efficiency, using Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) to save time, labor, and money.
Workflow Automation
Unemployment is at historic lows, and labor shortages and rising labor costs make it difficult to staff new facilities or grow your workforce as you expand your business.
With fewer boots on the warehouse floor, it’s essential to look for every opportunity to help streamline and automate more of what they do, empowering them to get work done faster, more accurately, and more efficiently.
With so many new mobile devices, tracking technologies, and software applications out now that help digitize and automate virtually any process—from warehouse picking to work-in-process tracking to asset management— you stand to see a substantial productivity increase when you upgrade to new infrastructure.
As a quick example, one company saw a 14% increase in worker productivity and 40% faster data accuracy by implementing just one innovative new device from Zebra Technologies that combines barcode scanning with mobile computing in a more efficient and ergonomic handheld. The same company also saw 60% fewer data capture errors.
Inventory Management
As you look for ways to automate your workflows, you should also look at digitizing and automating your inventory management as well. One technology to consider is RFID.
Using Zebra’s industry-setting RFID hardware, we design solutions that enable our customers to achieve real-time inventory accuracy of nearly 99% and reduce the time to conduct facility-wide inventory counts.
With RFID tagging and tracking of your inventory, there’s no need for manual barcode scans or line-of-sight access to barcodes. Workers can read an entire room’s worth of RFID tags in
minutes using a single handheld reader. You can even install fixed RFID readers in key locations such as dock doors, doorways or warehouse aisles, to track items as they move through your facility, creating a completely automated way of tracking inventory.
If you’re looking for ways to create more efficient and accurate inventory management, then RFID is definitely an avenue to explore. If you want to get a crash course in what’s possible today using RFID, sign up for our RFID email series, which will help you learn how it works, how you can apply it in your business, and more. Then, reach out to our experts for an assessment, and we’ll be happy to help.
Asset Management
In everything from medical device and aerospace manufacturing to warehousing and distribution, there are valuable and sometimes sensitive assets that you will need to track and use in your day-to-day operations.
Being able to quickly find, locate and access the right assets is often crucial to keeping production moving and avoiding costly, disruptive downtime as your workers try to track down mission-critical items. Equally important is the ability to track your assets’ routine maintenance, inspection, or calibration so you can plan accordingly.
In fact, we’ve seen cases where some companies were losing track of expensive production tools or inspection equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace, and we’ve seen many others where entire production lines were shut down or delayed while the right tooling was tracked down and moved from another building on the company’s property.
With an RFID tracking system, both of these are possible. Your workers will never lose their equipment for long, and you can easily check when your devices have last received maintenance or service.
Download our case study to read how we saved one company millions in lost inspection equipment and fines using a passive RFD tracking system.
Operational Visibility
Business decisions are only as good as your visibility into your operations, workflows, transactions, trends and workforce. One key advantage of creating end-to-end traceability and digitizing your item management and workflows is that you gain a clear view of everything that’s happening at every edge of your operations.
You can use barcodes or RFID to trace raw materials and finished goods from receiving to delivery, so you always know what inventory you have on hand, your production output, and your shipping timeliness and delivery performance. Thanks to your workers’ mobile computers scanning feature, that data is readily available and consolidated so you always know what inventory you have on hand and also see where bottlenecks or inefficiencies are occurring.
Having a digital record of every asset and transaction allows you to quickly build the right dashboards and reports, and even start using automated and AI-driven analysis to help you make informed decisions more effectively. This unlocks insights into your processes, including in areas of your operations you previously could not see.
Many companies operating in Arizona have achieved this kind of visibility for years thanks to the latest advances in data capture and real-time locating systems. Some are even using sophisticated AI and machine learning to help inform, automate and enhance their visibility and decision-making.
It might sound like science fiction, but it’s quickly becoming today’s reality, especially in Arizona, where so many new facilities and operations are starting up their operations with innovative approaches and technology strategies.
Getting on the Fast Track to Efficient and Optimized Operations
Contact AB&R to learn more about some of the best ways to create efficient and optimized operations in your plant, warehouse or distribution center. We can help you get up to speed on the latest developments in automation, inventory management and asset management technology, and we can share case studies and insights to show you how other Arizona facilities have gotten up and running with the smartest strategies.
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