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Zebra’s technology solutions for department stores and specialty stores, feature hardware and software for retail management and workforce management.
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Zebra’s retail inventory management solutions, feature hardware, software and supplies for optimizing inventory management and demand forecasting.
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Zebra’s point-of-care solutions, feature hardware, software, and supplies for mobile access to critical information, patient ID, specimen collection and labeling.
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Achieve seamless production with Zebra’s manufacturing WIP solutions, featuring hardware and software for tracking products and spotting bottlenecks early.
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Boost performance with smart digital solutions. Equip your team with Zebra’s AI-powered tools for real-time guidance and efficient workflows.
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Achieve excellence with Zebra’s proactive quality management solutions, featuring hardware and software for supporting root cause analysis and assurance.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Let Zebra show you how our transformative emergency response technology can be your best ally in serving the public.
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Manage the inventory of your military commissary and exchange service with Zebra’s practical and rugged inventory management printers and scanners.
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Zebra’s electronic citation (E-citation) solutions provide enforcement officers with fast, accurate options for electronic ticketing.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Empower the front line with prioritized task notification and enhanced communication capabilities for easier collaboration and more efficient task execution.
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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.
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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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Why Basic Inventory Data Isn't So Easy
There are three things you must do – and one reality you must accept – when managing inventory data…if you want to get your inventory right.
Getting the basic inventory data right is a lot of work.
Henrik Danford-Klein reminded me of this in a great conversation. Henrik is a supply chain executive who’s spent many years managing, analyzing, and trying to reduce inventory. He had great lessons and stories that matched my experience.
Here are some lessons for all of us to keep in mind:
First, you might have multiple demand streams: Inventory formulas have a single value for demand. This works fine in many cases, but not all.
For example, you may have a set of customers that consistently order daily or weekly and others with big orders monthly or quarterly. Or, you may have customers that you want to serve with a much higher fill rate.
You want to analyze and track the different demand streams in such cases. For example, you may want to set aside inventory for one group or have different promised delivery times.
Unfortunately, this will require some work to think through. For example, you may miss out on needed risk pooling if you have two (or more) independent inventory calculations. On the other hand, if you have one calculation, you need to think through the rules and when it is ok to break them.
Second, watch for the bullwhip effect: If a company sells directly and through many channels, you may need to filter to determine the actual demand.
This can happen if there is a shortage. In this case, the customer may place multiple orders through different channels. These orders can look like a lot of missed demand. But, of course, it is not all real. As soon as the customer gets the product they want, they cancel the other orders. This is one of the causes of the bullwhip effect.
You’ll want a system to filter this demand out. If you don’t, it can lead to too much inventory or, worse, unneeded investments in production capacity.
Third, watch out for calendars and time buckets. Henrik mentioned a company where inventory would spike every February. No one knew why. This was a business that didn’t have much seasonality.
At first, the spike was blamed on the automatic adjustments of lead times. There would always be delays at the end of the year. Since lead times showed an uptick, maybe this led to extra inventory in February.
Lead times weren’t to blame. Although, this does give another lesson: Don’t be too dynamic in changing parameters if you are catching more noise than signal.
Instead, the problem was that February had fewer days. The planning systems were based on monthly buckets. Then, specific demand was allocated to the days, and each day in February got too much demand.
The good news is that once you know about this, it is easy to spot, and there are fixes. The fixes are converting to just using weeks as the primary time bucket or creating your own definitions of months (and explicitly calling out the four- and five-week months).
The bad news is that it can be a headache fix. This is because we tend to think, plan, and have other important systems that work in monthly buckets.
Fourth, if you calculate values automatically, put in some safety caps. There will always be anomalies in the data. Anyone who calculates the forecast error, lead time, or lead-time variability will have stories about one of these values spiked because something funny happened with the data.
So, when you build these systems, you want to include a process to either cap the amount a value can change from period to period or only make a large change if it gets the proper approvals. Of course, you should also build in periodic audits to ensure the data stays clean.
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