Talking Hot Solutions for Cold Storage
Summer is coming to a close and the August heat is here, making this about the perfect time to talk about keeping cool. Keeping everything from seafood to ice cream, and produce to pharmaceuticals at constant, controlled temperatures is no small task. And for workers in these environments, downtime can freeze up more than just deliveries.
Keeping track of what’s in your cold environment – whether in storage, in motion, or at delivery, is imperative to ensuring customer satisfaction. You need to ensure that temperature is suitable throughout the supply chain while keeping accurate tabs on what’s actually in your custody. This means being able to perform inventory management, picking, and delivery tasks in freezers and other “sub-zero” areas. Workers need a mix of mobile technologies that are up to the task of performing in these harsh environments.
Freezer-rated mobile computers are the first (and obvious) foundation for cold chain deployments. These devices have high IP (ingress protection) ratings, a wide operating temperature range, and are well-designed for thermal shock. These devices have displays that remain responsive in extreme cold, with keys and touchscreens that are equally up to the task. Whether a forklift-mounted computer or handheld device, key-and-screen-based interaction by workers with gloved hands is a must.
What freezer-ready mobile computers offer for durability, voice-enabling your cold-chain apps does for speed. Adding Ivanti Speakeasy enables cold chain workers to accomplish picking, put-away, and other tasks fast, with advantages including:
- Avoid numb fingers: Voice is part of a multimodal data capture solution. However, gloved hands and harsh environments mean any time data can be collected automatically, you’re working faster. You don’t want workers fumbling with keyed data entry while shivering.
- Keep moving, stay warm: Watch your workers. When they read their device screen or enter data, their feet stop moving. With voice, workers are entering data while moving, saving your business time, and getting them out of the freezer faster.
- Works with Freezer Mobility: Speakeasy works with your preferred freezer-rated mobile computer – whether it’s forklift-mounted or handheld. Couple the device with a freezer-rated rugged headset, and you’re ready. No voice-specific hardware is required when deploying Speakeasy.
- (Gloved) Hands off Your Host Systems: Adding voice is easy because Speakeasy works with your existing enterprise applications. Unlike traditional voice applications, Speakeasy doesn’t require any modifications, middleware, or “system interfaces” to your cold storage/warehouse management system.
- Put development costs on ice: Speakeasy voice-enables your existing telnet or browser-based mobile application and easily integrates with Ivanti Velocity you migrate those applications to Android.
Cold storage operations face unique environmental challenges, but also the pressures of fast delivery and order accuracy that are common throughout the supply chain. If it’s been a while since you took a look at voice-enabling your cold-chain workflows, now is the time to look again. You’ll find Speakeasy makes it easy to speed up the delivery of hot orders, reduce errors, and helps you keep your cool.