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.
Drive down costs while driving up employee, security, and network performance with software designed to enhance Zebra's wireless infrastructure and mobile solutions.
Explore Zebra’s printer software to integrate, manage and monitor printers easily, maximizing IT resources and minimizing down time.
Make the most of every stage of your scanning journey from deployment to optimization. Zebra's barcode scanner software lets you keep devices current and adapt them to your business needs for a stronger ROI across the full lifecycle.
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.
Zebra DNA is the industry’s broadest suite of enterprise software that delivers an ideal experience for all during the entire lifetime of every Zebra device.
Advance your digital transformation and execute your strategic plans with the help of the right location and tracking technology.
Boost warehouse and manufacturing operations with Symmetry, an AMR software for fleet management of Autonomous Mobile Robots and streamlined automation workflows.
The Zebra Aurora suite of machine vision software enables users to solve their track-and-trace, vision inspection and industrial automation needs.
Zebra Aurora Focus brings a new level of simplicity to controlling enterprise-wide manufacturing and logistics automation solutions. With this powerful interface, it’s easy to set up, deploy and run Zebra’s Fixed Industrial Scanners and Machine Vision Smart Cameras, eliminating the need for different tools and reducing training and deployment time.
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.
Adding innovative tech is critical to your success, but it can be complex and disruptive. Professional Services help you accelerate adoption, and maximize productivity without affecting your workflows, business processes and finances.
Zebra's Managed Service delivers worry-free device management to ensure ultimate uptime for your Zebra Mobile Computers and Printers via dedicated experts.
Find ways you can contact Zebra Technologies’ Support, including Email and Chat, ask a technical question or initiate a Repair Request.
Zebra's Circular Economy Program helps you manage today’s challenges and plan for tomorrow with smart solutions that are good for your budget and the environment.
The Zebra Knowledge Center provides learning expertise that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of your environment.
Zebra has a wide variety of courses to train you and your staff, ranging from scheduled sessions to remote offerings as well as custom tailored to your specific needs.
Build your reputation with Zebra's certification offerings. Zebra offers a variety of options that can help you progress your career path forward.
Build your reputation with Zebra's certification offerings. Zebra offers a variety of options that can help you progress your career path forward.
The Truth About Connectivity in the Warehouse: Green-Screen Apps
What is it about telnet that makes it possible for modern warehouse devices to continue to run it?
Telnet is a technology term that takes us to times before the internet era itself. In the 1980s, a techno-thriller movie called “War Games” showed us how a teenager almost started World War 3 by hacking into a U.S. Department of Defense’s server while trying to patch his grades through a telnet connection. In 1999, another sci-fi movie showed us how Neo, the Chosen One, perceived the true nature of “The Matrix”: tons of data, displayed in green text, transmitted in lightning-fast speeds on a black screen.
Now, in 2024, it is estimated that 60% of all mobile devices currently in use in distribution centers around the world run green-screen applications to connect to warehouse management systems (WMS) or other enterprise applications, such as IBM’s AS400.
Why? What is it about telnet that keeps it so relevant technology 50 years after it was invented?
Hollywood movies provide good hints: Telnet allows for connectivity to remote applications, and it is super-fast. But there is more to telnet than remote connectivity and speed. Before you consider migrating from a telnet-based application to something else, make sure you don’t lose any of the advantages that Smart Telnet (TE) clients offer today:
Security
In times when most of the WMS vendors are providing Software as a Service (SaaS), mobile devices require secure connections to the cloud environments where the SaaS applications are hosted. Smart TE clients meet this requirement by providing SSH encryption.
Session Persistence
Dropped sessions are the number one productivity killer in warehouses around the world. Internet latency, roaming between antennas, entering wireless dark zones, or having the battery die in the middle of the shift may interrupt a session, forcing workers to reenter their credentials and then search and navigate to the task where the session was dropped. This interruption takes anywhere between one to three minutes to recover per incident. Consider this example: If one order takes 10 minutes to complete, one dropped session degrades the worker’s fulfillment productivity by up to 30%. Real-world negative impact levels are closer to 10%, but that’s still very high.
When an interruption occurs, Smart TE apps make the session persist, meaning that the screen appears to freeze momentarily, but then recovers, allowing the user to continue to work on the same screen where the interruption occurred. No time is wasted reentering credentials or searching for the order that was in progress. This feature is called “session persistence.”
Performance
Warehouse workers use their mobile devices to keep track of inventory as it traverses the various stages of storage, from receiving down to delivery. While capturing the movement of inventory is important, physically moving the inventory is the workers’ ultimate goal. Therefore, mobile devices must provide instructions to each worker in as succinct a format as possible. There’s no time to waste. Activity is fast paced. Instructions on the screen must be clear and short. The faster the screen transitions from one to the next, the more inventory the worker will be able to move throughout the day. A TE interface meets these requirements by presenting the instructions in clear, short, plain text. The screen’s transition response time is instantaneous.
Easy Integration with New Technologies in Your Warehouse
Integrating a host of new technologies may boost your warehouse team’s overall productivity. For example, wearable devices allow workers to keep hands free for moving inventory, which helps increase both output and safety in the workplace. That’s why we’re seeing such rapid adoption of wearables in these environments right now. Fortunately for you, there are Smart TE clients ready to integrate these new wearable devices, saving you the time and cost that would otherwise be required to upgrade the entire WMS application if you didn’t have this easy way to make your WMS work with your new wearables. Consider Zebra’s WT6000 mobile computers. A Smart TE client will automatically convert one long vertical screen into two halved screens, taking full advantage of the WT’s horizontal screen. Another exciting wearable device is the heads-up display (HUD). A Smart TE client will allow you to pick the significant information on a TE screen – a product’s location, for instance – and present it on the Zebra smart-glass display without having to write one single line of new code.
The same is true for integrating autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). One member of Zebra’s Independent Software Vendor (ISV) program has eliminated the need for upgrading the WMS to make them compatible with Zebra’s Fetch robots.
Less sophisticated technologies, such as bidimensional barcodes, are even easier to integrate into warehouse workflows. Consider the case of a 3PL company in Mexico that uses 2D barcodes at its receiving gates. By scanning each pallet one time only, its Smart TE app automatically populates all fields across multiple screens, such as date of manufacture, quantity, and SKU codes, reducing the 3PL’s receiving time by 30%.
Multi-modal Data Capture
Adding voice to a Smart TE app is one of my favorite use cases. A Smart TE client that allows voice as another mode of data capture saves a ton of money for companies seeking to adopt voice-picking technology in their operations. A voice-enabled TE client reuses the entire warehouse technology infrastructure: the barcode-reading Android devices, the WMS workflows, and equally important, the workers’ expertise. You will not be forced to eliminate the barcode-reading steps that you deem indispensable to your operation, hence the multimodal nature of the data-capturing. Each worker will simply speak out the instructions and data that they were previously punching into the keyboard. The Smart TE app will convert such voice commands into the same old keyboard presses that the WMS expects. The information on the screen will be read out loud to the worker, eliminating the need to hold the device in front of their face. It’s a truly liberating experience, enabling hands-free, eyes-up operations, without the need to add duplicating voice-only servers and devices.
In Other Words…
If you run your warehouse on a TE-based WMS, congratulations, you are in good hands. My guess, though, is that you’re not taking full advantage of your existing investment. So, before considering any expensive automation initiative in your warehouse, my personal advice is that you get more out of your existing Zebra devices and Smart TE software.
To learn more about Zebra’s ISVs that provide Smart TE, go to Zebra’s Partner Locator here.
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About the Author
Alejandro Calero is an industry veteran who has provided terminal emulation software-related services and professional advice to corporate customers, hardware manufacturers, WMS vendors, and the partner community throughout Latin America for the past 20 years. He runs Mobilis, a consulting company in Mexico City, which specializes in Smart TE applications, such as voice-enablement and lean warehousing applied to WMS mobile workflows. Mobilis is a member of the Zebra Independent Software Vendor program. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
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