Fast Charging Comes to Maturity to Support Supply Chain Tasks
Google announced its Pixel phone bragging that it could last up to seven hours after a 15-minute charge. How cool is that? You don’t need to go through a miserable day if (or maybe more truthfully when) you forget to charge your phone the night before.
I know from experience. When I had an iPhone 5, it would be a hard day if I missed charging before I went to sleep. Then, I got the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active, and it is not a big deal anymore, because I just need to put the phone in charge for about 30 minutes, I can go almost all day.
Now the Google Pixel beats even that. (I am upset that Apple doesn’t seem to be following the trend.) Fast charging is going to change a lot of things in the enterprise, especially factories, industries, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, warehouses and retail stores. Since handheld and wearable devices are extensively used in these scenarios. Handheld and wearable devices are often used to count inventory in warehouses, distribution centers, and retail stores.
Fast charging technology adds immense value to these scenarios in at least two ways:
- No more hefty dollars spent on batteries. Now, organizations can use that money to buy more devices.
- Lightweight devices lead to a many benefits. Less stress on Workers hands, especially women’s, are stressed less. Many women we have worked with have complained about tendinitis, nerve issues, wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and more associated with carrying a two-pound device around all day.
Light devices are easier to carry and maneuver. It is much easier to move boxes while a device is worn on the arm. It is much easier to operate the equipment or machinery with a device worn on the arm, which results in improved productivity.
In warehouses and distribution centers, where workers are measured on the number of units or boxes picked or moved, a hands free tool to record those counts and report those to the warehouse management system (WMS) is very helpful and efficient. It gives supervisors best bang for their labor bucks.
These operators perform a variety of functions: receiving, sorting, quality audit, quality inspection, put away, picking, replenishment, packing, manifesting, shipping, etc. For these operators, the day begins around 7:00 AM and typically goes for eight hours. They might stop for a couple of 15-minute coffee breaks and a 45-minute lunch break.
As long as all operators make it a standard operating procedure to charge their devices during breaks, they can easily go all day and finish their work without issues. The same works very well for a multi shift scenario as well. The workers swap the devices, transfer ownership of the devices, then they continue to do their work and follow the same schedule. This works even for the three-shift scenario. Fast charging works perfectly for the mobile devices being used in the supply chain.
It doesn’t end there. There’s huge benefit for other electric equipment, such as fork lifts, lift trucks, turret trucks, reach trucks, etc. Technically, fast charging has been available for quite some time for heavy equipment.
So what are your thoughts on fast charging in your supply chain? How do you think fast charging for mobile devices will benefit It? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Originally published at Smartgladiator.com on Feb 28, 2018.
Puga Sankara
Puga Sankara is the co-founder of Smart Gladiator LLC. Smart Gladiator designs, builds, and delivers market-leading mobile technology for retailers, distributors, and 3PL service providers. SG LoadProof is a patent pending Centralized Enterprise Photo/Video Document System on Cloud for Supply Chain. SG LP is built on the fact that photos & videos are vital docs as important as POs/SOs/Legal Contracts/Fulfillment Orders that reside in ERP/WMS/TMS systems, that serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal proof of crucial, critical, vital operations executed in Supply Chain within/across orgs when fulfilling customer orders as well as meeting contractual obligations between orgs as merchandise is transferred between different parties that partake in Supply Chain functions & operations. And these photos/videos data should not be stored in someone’s Smartphone or Email Inbox or in their personal/work Computer, but should be stored in a Centralized Enterprise system, where such data can be pushed into super-fast, stored securely, accessible to all stake holders (CFO/Sales Reps/Customer Support/AR/AP) in an org, as well as facilitates super-fast retrieval/sharing. LP is an Enterprise System of record for Photo/Video docs & is as important as an ERP which is an enterprise system of record for POs, SOs, Legal Contracts between parties etc. that have huge legal ramifications, also as important as a WMS (Warehouse Management System) that hold indispensable shipment & fulfillment data on orders. Like how Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. have evolved into social media platforms/systems that enable individuals to showcase their beauty/pretty clothes/lovely cosmetics/hep coolness etc., LoadProof is an Enterprise system that holds similar photos/videos, but for a different reason, not for show off, but to serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal & indisputable system of record and proof that can be presented even in the court of law, when there is a dispute between parties while they execute many facets of the Supply Chain functions & operations. Puga is a supply chain technology professional with more than 25 years of experience in deploying capabilities in the logistics and supply chain domain. His prior roles involved managing complicated mission-critical programs driving revenue numbers, rolling out a multitude of capabilities involving more than a dozen systems, and managing a team of 30 to 50 personnel across multiple disciplines and departments in large corporations such as Hewlett Packard. He has deployed WMS for more than 30 distribution centers in his role as a senior manager with Manhattan Associates. He has also performed process analysis walk-throughs for more than 50 distribution centers for WMS process design and performance analysis review, optimizing processes for better productivity and visibility through the supply chain. Size of these DCs varied from 150,000 to 1.2 million SQFT. Puga Sankara has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit the company at www.smartgladiator.com. Also follow him at www.pugasankara.com.
