Transform retail operations with Zebra’s retail technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for improving inventory management and empowering teams.
Streamline operations with Zebra’s grocery technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for improving retail shelf management, ordering and replenishment.
Enhance e-commerce operations with Zebra’s real-time inventory and automated workflows. Ensure accurate fulfillment, efficient returns, and seamless service.
Zebra’s technology solutions for department stores and specialty stores, feature hardware and software for retail management and workforce management.
Zebra’s omnichannel fulfillment technology solutions, feature hardware and software for timely order processing across channels and unified customer experience.
Zebra’s retail inventory management solutions, feature hardware, software and supplies for optimizing inventory management and demand forecasting.
Enhance transactions with Zebra’s POS technology solutions, featuring hardware, software and supplies for optimizing the checkout experience.
Zebra’s customer experience technology solutions, feature hardware and software for delivering personalized retail experiences and self-service capabilities.
Safeguard profits with Zebra’s retail loss prevention technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for enhancing security and product movement visibility.
Zebra’s associate engagement technology solutions, feature hardware and software for shift scheduling, task management, and team communications.
Streamline operations with Zebra’s healthcare technology solutions, featuring hardware and software to improve staff collaboration and optimize workflows.
Zebra’s hospital technology solutions, feature hardware and software for automating health system processes, reducing errors, and ensuring compliance.
Zebra’s patient registration technology solutions, featuring hardware, software, wristbands, and supplies improve patient identification for safer registration.
Optimize critical assets with Zebra’s healthcare asset tracking technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for ensuring equipment readiness.
Improve decision-making with Zebra’s Health Information Technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for enabling secure communication and data access.
Reduce lab errors with Zebra’s sample identification technology solutions, featuring hardware, software, labels, and supplies for accurate sample and specimen labeling.
Improve pharmacy workflows with Zebra’s pharmacy automation technology solutions, featuring hardware, software, labels, and supplies to reduce medication errors.
Zebra’s point-of-care solutions, feature hardware, software, and supplies for mobile access to critical information, patient ID, specimen collection and labeling.
Enhance processes with Zebra’s manufacturing technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for automation, data analysis, and factory connectivity.
Streamline operations with Zebra’s automotive manufacturing technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for reducing downtime and improving processes.
Optimize processes, assembly and supply chain efficiency with Zebra’s electronics manufacturing technology solutions, featuring hardware and software.
Boost production with Zebra’s food and beverage manufacturing technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for compliance and quality monitoring.
Achieve excellence with proactive quality management. Use Zebra’s solutions for precise root cause analysis and quality assurance.
Achieve seamless production with Zebra’s manufacturing WIP solutions, featuring hardware and software for tracking products and spotting bottlenecks early.
Ensure efficiency with Zebra’s material handling technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for automating systems to prevent delays.
Optimize operations and gain inventory and shipment data with Zebra’s supply chain visibility technology solutions, featuring hardware and software.
Boost performance with smart digital solutions. Equip your team with Zebra’s AI-powered tools for real-time guidance and efficient workflows.
Drive efficiency with Zebra’s unified communications solutions, featuring hardware and software for connecting teams for seamless operations.
Achieve excellence with Zebra’s proactive quality management solutions, featuring hardware and software for supporting root cause analysis and assurance.
Gain transparency with Zebra’s manufacturing traceability solutions, featuring hardware and software for tracking products for compliance and quality control.
Prevent downtime with Zebra’s manufacturing asset tracking solutions, featuring hardware and software for efficiently locating equipment and materials.
Zebra’s transportation and logistics technology solutions feature hardware and software for enhancing route planning, visibility, and automating processes.
Protect products with Zebra’s cold chain logistics technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for accurate tracking, monitoring and data logging.
Enhance operations with Zebra’s post and courier technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for package tracking, proof of delivery, and more.
Zebra’s warehousing and distribution technology solutions, feature hardware and software for inventory tracking, order fulfillment, and warehouse automation.
Ensure accuracy with Zebra’s proof of delivery technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for capturing delivery data efficiently.
Improve efficiency with Zebra’s cross docking technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for real-time tracking and automating scanning and labeling.
Zebra’s order processing technology solutions, feature hardware and software for shipping optimization, order tracking, data analysis and better inventory control.
Zebra’s warehouse inventory management solutions, feature hardware and software for inventory tracking, space utilization, and data-driven insights.
Zebra’s inbound logistics technology solutions, feature hardware and software for inventory management, order fulfillment, and better visibility of shipments.
Zebra’s reverse logistics technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for better visibility and streamlining receiving, sorting, and managing returns.
Enhance deliveries with Zebra’s outbound logistics technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for ensuring timely, precise shipments.
Zebra’s warehouse asset management technology solutions, featuring hardware and software for improved visibility and control of asset movements.
Learn how Zebra's public sector technology solutions empower state and local governments to improve efficiency with asset tracking and data capture devices.
Zebra’s printing, scanning and tracking technologies for public sector healthcare help ensure delivery of the best possible care for optimal health outcomes.
Zebra’s law enforcement and first responder technologies – scanners, tablets and mobile computers – give you real-time, accurate situational awareness.
Zebra’s asset tracking and data capture technologies empower federal civilian agencies to operate more efficiently and effectively.
Zebra’s printing, scanning and mobile computer technology gives state and local government agencies the tools to provide services quickly and efficiently, making the best use of resources.
Zebra’s military and Department of Defense (DoD) barcode printing and asset tracking technologies increase visibility into assets, personnel and equipment, for faster, more efficient and secure operations.
Create a safe and secure environment on campus with Zebra’s ID printing and tracking solutions.
With Zebra's law enforcement technology solutions, you can answer the call of duty with greater confidence. Spend more time protecting the public and less time doing paperwork.
Track your teams, equipment and vitals, so you're better prepared, better protected and better informed at the fire station and at the scene.
Let Zebra show you how our transformative emergency response technology can be your best ally in serving the public.
Zebra’s asset management devices for local and federal government enable agencies to track and manage total asset inventories.
Zebra’s identity management technologies for government include secure ID card printing, mobile fingerprint collection, document scanning, CAC card verification, personnel validation and more.
Zebra’s inspection and code enforcement technology provides fast accurate options for ensuring compliance.
Zebra’s disaster and emergency management mobile technologies allow for real-time communication for onsite assessment, asset tracking and identification, and inventory control.
Zebra’s mobile logistics solutions for military supply chains keep operations moving smoothly around the clock.
Manage the inventory of your military commissary and exchange service with Zebra’s practical and rugged inventory management printers and scanners.
Zebra’s MRO solutions enable personnel to access work orders and maintenance histories, track parts and inventories, and complete necessary documents.
Deliver the right human services, when and where they’re needed, quickly, efficiently and accurately.
Zebra’s electronic citation (E-citation) solutions provide enforcement officers with fast, accurate options for electronic ticketing.
Zebra’s ID card printers and scanners allow for high volume license printing and processing of drivers, marriage, insurance and wildlife licenses.
Zebra’s Communications & Collaboration solutions enable a safer, more informed field workforce, for both routine operations and emergency response.
Zebra’s situational awareness solutions for public safety include an array of purpose-built mobile computers, rugged tablets, visibility and support services enable a fully customized solution for your agency’s needs.
Zebra's hospitality technology solutions equip your hotel and restaurant staff to deliver superior customer and guest service through inventory tracking and more.
With Zebra's Hospitality Communication Solutions, you can enable real-time communications for your hospitality staff with mobile computers and smartphone devices.
Zebra's card printing solutions allows for fast, on-demand printing of room access keys, VIP badges, loyalty, membership and gift cards
Keep track and stay prepared by monitoring and tracking inventory and asset locations with Zebra's restaurant and hotel inventory management solutions.
Zebra provides food label solutions for restaurants, hotels and more. Our labels meet local regulations for direct and indirect food contact.
Zebra's restaurant mobile POS and ordering devices can increase your restaurant sales, enhance server productivity, and increase guest satisfaction.
Zebra's food safety hardware and software keep your guests safe and enable you to automate food safety procedures, reducing the odds of spreading food-borne illness.
Zebra's QSR software can enable you to increase inventory counts, scan guest loyalty apps, decrease wait times and increase customer satisfaction.
Zebra's market-leading solutions and products improve customer satisfaction with a lower cost per interaction by keeping service representatives connected with colleagues, customers, management and the tools they use to satisfy customers across the supply chain.
Enable field workers to perform pre-sales, sales, route accounting activities and more effectively interact with customers.
Instant access to technical specs and inventory helps improve customer satisfaction.
Mobile computers and printers ensure accurate chain of custody handoff during pick-up and delivery.
Empower your field workers with purpose-driven mobile technology solutions to help them capture and share critical data in any environment.
Zebra's mobile computing portfolio is designed to help utility companies improvement the management and lifecycle of their assets.
Zebra's mobile devices enable your entire staff, from call center representatives to field technicians, to deliver enhanced customer service through the use of mobile technology.
Zebra's rugged mobile technology solutions provide the field dispatch and routing tools needed to accelerate in-field operations. Learn More.
From first call through incident investigation, Zebra ruggedized mobile solutions enable emergency response personnel to serve public safety and utilities industries more effectively with industry-leading mobility strategies.
Zebra's rugged mobile devices provide your field teams and contractors with complete situational awareness to meet customer service needs.
Zebra's mobile computing solutions provide utilities companies with the tools needed for advanced GIS asset mapping of in-field infrastructure.
Zebra's mobile computing portfolio features tools to help you upgrade processes such as digitizing record inspections to speed up efficiencies. Learn More.
Zebra's mobile computing solutions specialize in the real-time, data-powered mobile workflows to help utility companies with inventory management. Learn more.
Zebra's rugged HazLoc mobile devices help optimize your critical operations with safety as a top priority. Learn More.
Zebras field-certified rugged mobile devices connect oil and gas field workers to real-time critical data. Learn More.
Zebra's mobile technology solutions enable your operators to get real-time remote asset monitoring across your operations. Learn More.
Zebra's rugged mobile computing solutions enable your staff to plan, schedule and complete maintenance and repairs in any environment. Learn More.
Drive successful telecom management with mobile devices designed to meet the demands of public safety and customer service.
Zebra's data-powered mobile technology solutions help you to generate efficiencies across your field service operation in the water industry. Learn More.
Zebra's mobile work order management technology allows you to leverage your existing systems to your operations perform at their very best. Learn More.
Zebra's range of Banking technology solutions enables banks to minimize costs and to increase revenue throughout their branch network. Learn more.
Zebra's range of mobile computers equip your workforce with the devices they need from handhelds and tablets to wearables and vehicle-mounted computers.
Zebra's desktop, mobile, industrial, and portable printers for barcode labels, receipts, RFID tags and cards give you smarter ways to track and manage assets.
Zebra's 1D and 2D corded and cordless barcode scanners anticipate any scanning challenge in a variety of environments, whether retail, healthcare, T&L or manufacturing.
Zebra's extensive range of RAIN RFID readers, antennas, and printers give you consistent and accurate tracking.
Choose Zebra's reliable barcode, RFID and card supplies carefully selected to ensure high performance, print quality, durability and readability.
Zebra's location technologies provide real-time tracking for your organization to better manage and optimize your critical assets and create more efficient workflows.
Zebra's rugged tablets and 2-in-1 laptops are thin and lightweight, yet rugged to work wherever you do on familiar and easy-to-use Windows or Android OS.
With Zebra's family of fixed industrial scanners and machine vision technologies, you can tailor your solutions to your environment and applications.
Zebra’s line of kiosks can meet any self-service or digital signage need, from checking prices and stock on an in-aisle store kiosk to fully-featured kiosks that can be deployed on the wall, counter, desktop or floor in a retail store, hotel, airport check-in gate, physician’s office, local government office and more.
Discover Zebra’s range of accessories from chargers, communication cables to cases to help you customize your mobile device for optimal efficiency.
Zebra's environmental sensors monitor temperature-sensitive products, offering data insights on environmental conditions across industry applications.
Enhance frontline operations with Zebra’s AI software solutions, which optimize workflows, streamline processes, and simplify tasks for improved business outcomes.
Keep labor costs low, your talent happy and your organization compliant. Create an agile operation that can navigate unexpected schedule changes and customer demand to drive sales, satisfy customers and improve your bottom line.
Empower the front line with prioritized task notification and enhanced communication capabilities for easier collaboration and more efficient task execution.
Get full visibility of your inventory and automatically pinpoint leaks across all channels.
Reduce uncertainty when you anticipate market volatility. Predict, plan and stay agile to align inventory with shifting demand.
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RFID development, demonstration and production software and utilities help you build and manage your RFID deployments more efficiently.
RFID development, demonstration and production software and utilities help you build and manage your RFID deployments more efficiently.
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Advance your digital transformation and execute your strategic plans with the help of the right location and tracking technology.
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Aurora Imaging Library™, formerly Matrox Imaging Library, machine-vision software development kit (SDK) has a deep collection of tools for image capture, processing, analysis, annotation, display, and archiving. Code-level customization starts here.
Aurora Design Assistant™, formerly Matrox Design Assistant, integrated development environment (IDE) is a flowchart-based platform for building machine vision applications, with templates to speed up development and bring solutions online quicker.
Designed for experienced programmers proficient in vision applications, Aurora Vision Library provides the same sophisticated functionality as our Aurora Vision Studio software but presented in programming language.
Aurora Vision Studio, an image processing software for machine & computer vision engineers, allows quick creation, integration & monitoring of powerful OEM vision applications.
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Build your reputation with Zebra's certification offerings. Zebra offers a variety of options that can help you progress your career path forward.
If you consider for a moment what defines a fast-moving market, you may include variables like high levels of competition, a large customer base, the regular emergence of new brands, and the need for continuous innovation. All these factors are prevalent in the quick service restaurant (QSR) sector – which has long been one of the most competitive around. In fact, QSRs are among the few that have been agile enough to survive frequent lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. They adapted operations in a way that allowed them to stay “open” and compliant with local regulations via drive-thru, curbside pickup and home delivery services, which is very impressive given the challenges they faced.
But let me ask you a question: how often do you see staff in coffee shops, sandwich bars, and restaurants using mobile devices? Though we’re seeing mobile technology usage increase, in part due to pandemic-prompted operational changes, many QSRs are still relying on manual processes – at least in part of their operations.
Indeed, in our always-on, hyperconnected world where mobile technologies and apps are enabling many sectors to better serve customers, it feels contradictory that pen and paper still dominate workflows in QSRs where service excellence is a prerequisite for success. This is especially true now that COVID-19 has compelled almost every business to offer contactless checkout and customer service experiences.
And pen and paper are not just used to take orders. Staff are still taking manual notes when overseeing deliveries, planning rosters, amending sell-by dates, managing inventory, and much more. It’s highly inefficient – and surprising – considering that mobility tools are availability to digitalise these actions. What’s more, with legislation around allergies becoming more demanding, creating critical audit trails with the necessary accuracy demands a move to mobile technology. It’s time for the sector to embrace mobile devices to help improve customer service, boost productivity, and enhance store efficiencies.
Fortunately, food and beverage industry decision makers agree. Today, only 39% of industry organisations use mobile computers in their operations. But, in five years’ time, 90% expect to be using them.
That’s why Zebra engineers have spent the last several months designing, developing and refining a new pair of mobile computers designed specifically for use in hospitality environments: the EC50 and EC55.
QSRs that want to survive in the current climate and come back even stronger once the pandemic passes will be best served by a cost-effective – and profitable – transition to automated workflows. But it’s going to take an entirely new category of mobile computers to facilitate this move with ease. Thus, our efforts to create the rugged EC50 and EC55, which are the first to essentially combine the best elements of smartphones and robust enterprise devices.
Unlike traditional enterprise mobile computers, which are typically designed for specific tasks and shared among a pool of users, the EC5x devices are intended to be individually assigned to your staff in support of all tasks they may be charged with completing in a shift. So, an employee that starts his or her shift outside queue-busting with the cellular and Wi-Fi-capable EC55 may be asked to go inside a couple of hours later to reconcile inventory so that replenishment orders can be placed with suppliers by the end of the day. The EC55 will support both workflows, enabling the employee to transition quickly from one task to the next.
In fact, your staff will find it far easier to collect stock data and also order deliveries from their devices when inventory thresholds fall below a certain level thanks to the integrated scanner, which is not a common feature of the consumer smartphones to which these devices aesthetically mirror. Weekly inventory checks that would have previously taken 2.5 hours to complete with pen and paper can now be completed in 15 to 30 minutes, enabling your staff to spend much more time with customers and much less time on administrative tasks.
This isn’t the only task that will become easier, though. Store staff can use either the EC50 or EC55 to access menus, accurately take orders (and send these immediately to the kitchen), alter orders when items are unavailable, and view all offers and promotions in one place. Critically, too, staff will be able to:
At the end of the day, we didn’t want to just create a rugged device that looked great for front-of-house use. We wanted to give you the tools needed to boost staff efficiency, productivity and morale – all of which improve customer service and the overall performance of your outlet, even when operations are challenged.
As we look forward, I firmly believe that being served by teams with mobile devices in QSRs will soon become the rule, not the exception. If you are planning the rollout of mobile computers, you may be tempted to look at consumer devices. This is understandable given that price points can seem low. However, the headline price isn’t the whole story. Consumer devices are not work tools, so their batteries may not last full shifts and may degrade more quickly with heavy long-term use. Durability can be an issue, too, as consumer devices don’t cope well with the knocks, drops, and spills that happen in busy restaurants. Smartphone models are also refreshed frequently. So, within a couple of years you may have to support two or more releases of the same device. This adds to maintenance costs.
The analyst firm VDC Research estimates that over five years, a rugged device such as the EC50 or EC55 will cost 50% less to own than a smartphone when you consider both purchase and running costs. I agree with this data, as I often run numbers for QSR customers comparing rugged versus consumer device ownership costs over five years. Typically, within two years, the total cost of ownership (TCO) – and the total benefits of ownership – become more favourable for the rugged device. The main reasons are because rugged devices tend to have lower breakage and failure rates and – like the EC50 and EC55 – come with a fully-fledged enterprise suite of tools to help you configure, deploy, secure, and maintain them with ease.
And though the Android-powered EC50 and EC55 aesthetically look similar to your personal device – sleek, lightweight and attractive – that is where their comparison with smartphones end. These new rugged mobile computers are business tools through and through. They’re:
Perhaps the best part is that a number of intelligent collaboration apps are built into this new mobility solution to help your teams work in more natural, streamlined, and effective ways. And, as my colleague Suresh Menon recently said in this Wall Street Journal article, “if you want to make every associate your best associate, you must take a holistic approach to technology-driven optimization.” That’s exactly what we set out to do – and hope you will embrace – with these first-of-their-kind EC50 and EC55 mobile computers.
If you are curious about how an EC5x-series rugged mobile computer can help your business, and its relative cost versus a consumer device, our team will be delighted to help. You can reach us here or visit our website for more insight.
Martin Murphy is currently the Hospitality Sales Lead at Zebra UK where he works closely with QSRs, hospitality retailers and their partners to deliver exceptional customers experiences on leading edge mobile technology. Martin has more than 20 years of experience within the IT industry and has previously held both sales and technical roles at HP, Xerox and Panasonic.
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