Radio Frequency Implementation Helps Medical Distribution Center Reduce Costs 6 Percent
Implementation of a new radio frequency (RF) wireless network helped Hollister Incorporated, a major medical products manufacturer, reduce the overall costs of operating its distribution center by 6% and labor costs by 9%.
When the company opened a new distribution facility in Nashville, Tennessee, managers of the facility felt that its efficiency and accuracy could be improved by providing warehouse personnel with handheld terminals that deliver orders and tasks and in turn provide real time updates to the company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. In order to assure a successful implementation, the company partnered with PEAK Technologies, a solutions integrator with extensive RF experience.
PEAK Technologies provided a systems requirements definition document that proved invaluable in demonstrating the value of the system to upper management. Hollister's distribution management and the integrator worked together to determine how to leverage RF hardware and software to improve the current processes. A certified interface to the SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system developed by the integrator (PEAK S/3 Interface) was utilized to define seven different transactions on the handheld terminals corresponding to ten SAP R/3 transactions.