Keeping goods moving at Unipart
Unipart are one of the largest warehousing and logistics businesses in the UK and for this project we were asked to work with their NHS division that looks after over 147,000 square feet of goods space on behalf of the NHS, from whom they had just won a new £5Bn contract with the NHS.
There were various challenging parts to this project that required all parts of Raptor's business to deliver upon. These are discussed below in more depth, however in short uptime was critical to this project, battery life, decent support and also a host of issues they had been having with current users and devices that we were tasked to resolve. Up time was critical to this project as well as having hardware that could aggressively scan all day long 24/7 on multiple shifts. Uptime was valued in a few ways inluding having a large enough battery so a dveice did not need recharging mid-shift, having devices working and available so they had maximum usage time and weren't in for repair in any way and lastly they needed to be simple so users could pick them up and use them quickly. Ergonomics and a decent scan engine were also required so that barcodes could be scanned
Up time Unipart is a 24/7 operation and they need their devices available, this means hardware needs to be rugged, batteries need to be big and, should they need a repair, it has to be quick. Aggressive and ergonomic scanning Unipart's rugged devices need too be scanning all day long, so mis-reads or scanning issues can add up to a lot of lost time. The device needs to have a top of the range scanner. Fast repairs with analysis A comprehensive package may be required by some sites, however the most important element of repairs was the overall turn around time. Managers also needed reporting so they could report back qucikly on repairs, costs and timings. Extra ruggedness Uniparts workers were known to be tough on devices, so they were open to seeing if there were any extra accessories or anything that could be built extra to help with reducing damage. Easy charging with ability to last a whole shift on one charge Even large batteries in previous devices seemed to not last a full shift. However with the option of not swapping batteires mid-shift Unipart felt they needed a larger battery if possible.
The Raptor E5 is an enterprise level device and was very quickly identified as being a great candidate for this project. Not only does it have the top-line N6603 barcode scanner as standard, but we were able to present repair times and stats directly from our portal to show Unipart just how fast and efficient our repair centre is. The E5 also came with plenty of accessories to ensure devices were always charging when not in use. The E5 is a rugged device and is more than happy working in a warehouse environment. We provided each device with a trigger handle that is unique in that it contains an extra 4500mAh battery which gives the total device 8800mAh of battery to use which has proven to last easily more than each shift. Along with our unique multi cradle system, users can simply drop in the device into the trigger handle cradle knowing that both batteries will be quickly charged automatically. This meant there was always an E5 ready for work.
To address the scanning need, the N6603 barcode scanner is one of the best scanners available on the market but we also assited in helping understand how to configure the scanner further so that the devices would oinly look for certain types of barcode making them much faster, with less errors..
Unipart chose to put some devices on contracted comprehensive support, however most of their estate is supported on our HALO service which has proven extremly fast with 24 hour turn-around times. The simplicity of our portal means depotmangers don't waste time logging repairs, whilst extensive reporting facility of our portal ensures that managers get whatever info they need on demand.
meanwhile our RAPTEC team started to come up with some products that would help Unipart reduce their repair numbers. Consulting with managers and users we found that creating extra silicon socks for the trigger handles would help, also offering a heavy duty sprung belt clip that meant devices could be carried instead of placed in fork lifts and trollies where they tended to fall from. These have had a huge impact in repairs reducing them by approximately 60%.
Raptor E5 Device with N6603 barcode scanner Raptec custom silicon socks for trigger handles. heavy duty attahced to belt winders Raptor Provisioning service for scanner setup Raptor HALO and PROTECT support