The Irish operations of Zetes have signed a major deal to implement a mobile data capture solution integrated with SAP ERP technology for the European manufacturing site of Hasbro, the makers of games like Monopoly and Connect 4.
Hasbro’s six-figure investment in new wireless data capture technology illustrates the ongoing importance placed by Irish businesses of continuing to invest in technology that helps to cut costs and improve profitability.
Hasbro Ireland, which manufactures around 10m board games each year, has purchased 20 Zetes IND 2475 touchscreen vehicle mounted terminals and MC9090s from Motorola to improve the responsiveness of its warehouse transactions. Products manufactured at Hasbro’s Waterford plant are shipped across Europe from a single warehouse.
Since implementing the data-capture devices, which have been integrated with Hasbro’s SAP warehouse management system, the company has seen costs reduce and productivity improve, as operators are able to work more efficiently.
To date, the new system has delivered two key benefits within the dispatch area. Pallets of finished goods can be moved more quickly from production lines into containers for shipping and dispatch drivers can process a greater volume of shipment transactions.
Zetes IND truck-mounted terminals were selected after a review of many products available because they can be easily customised to suit different working environments, such as low lighting, and have a small footprint for mounting inside a fork lift truck.
In addition to wireless data capture devices, Zetes has supplied its TotalCare mobile device management service to Hasbro, enabling the company to ensure 100pc availability of its mobile infrastructure.
Using TotalCare, Hasbro can remotely identify up-to-date location information of devices, be alerted to security or battery health issues, know the status of each device in a repair cycle, update applications or operating systems across the entire installed base and have a clear overview of contract expiry dates.
“We evaluated the latest mounted terminals on the market and found the Zetes IND range to most closely suit our requirements. They were the most easily customisable to suit a range of working environments, had a small footprint for mounting and also scored very highly with our workforce usability tests,” said Sean Hanly from Hasbro.
