How Can Wireless Barcode Printing Improve Productivity?
How to remove the tether with wireless barcode printing?
Timmy Thermal
More and more businesses are investing in wireless barcode printers.
For wireless barcode printing in warehouses, portable direct-thermal printers are still most common, but wireless tabletop printers are gaining in popularity. Businesses are finding that they can provide advantages for them but there are several factors to consider.
- Improve Productivity:
- mobile printing solutions eliminate the extra footsteps warehouse pickers take going back and forth to a wired bar code printer
- provides a printing solution at the point of activity allowing employees to be mobile works instead of portable workers, as they are not reliant on a wired printer servicing a small area
- using wireless printers eliminates need to rerun Cat-5 cables to the existing printers, thus eliminate the cost and extra labor required to do so
- Label Roll Changes:
- can be a challenge with portability as they need to be changed constantly if an employee is picking hundreds of items and using a traditional hip printer, which can be inefficient and hard on the printer
- Battries:
- battery power can also be a problem with mobile printing, as battery life is dependent on the quantity of labels printed
- a printer’s wireless network interface card (NIC) draws power from the battery
- use of larger, longer-lasting batteries may be the best choice if using a printer mounted on a mobile cart
- Connectivity Options:
- can make any printer wireless by using such hardware as USB (universal serial bus) adapters, HP Jetdirect cards (which include USB, serial, and LocalTalk connectors), or client bridges
- replace a printer’s parallel ports with a wireless card
- wireless printing does increase the load on a WLAN
- WLAN Configurations:
- configuring the WLAN properly to allow seamless roaming can be a challenge as radio frequency (RF) signals as they can be affected by other products around them, such as being absorbed by water or liquid, cardboard and paper, and also metal deflects the signals
- increased numbers of access points (AP) need to be installed and strategically located throughout the warehouses to maximize coverage
For more information on wireless barcoding printing technologies and to learn more about your options on all your printer, labeling and barcode scanning needs, call us as (800) 643-2664 and immediately talk to one of our friendly representatives; or chat us up on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!
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