The first Fuzzy Friday of 2020 is dedicated to my wife. As we keep growing as a business, we get involved in more and more projects. As we run more projects, we are exposed to more challenges, questions, technology and feedback from people.
My wife told me that she’s getting sick and tired of getting gift cards with every online order she places. Now I have to clarify this. She’s not getting sick and tired of every gift card, but the same gift card from the same company she ordered something from weeks or months ago. You can only have so many #NakedWines or #HelloFresh discounts and after receiving the 3rd $100 discount voucher for Naked Wines she told me to put a stop to it. I just looked at her and asker her: “how am I supposed to put a stop to this?” And she just looked back and told me: “you’re the logistics consultant, you’re in the business of automating things. Talk to your customers and tell them to stop sending me the same gift or discount card 3 times in a row!” She does have a point…
It raises an interesting question and one I’ve had many discussions about with customers over the years. They all seem to think they’re doing the customer a favour by presenting them with discount cards, gift cards for other businesses. For some customers this is absolutely the case, however, for some, like my wife, it is a constant annoyance and the way she sees it, wasteful. Whatever gift or discount card she gets goes straight into the bin.
So, how can I keep my wife happy through what we do as Fuzzy LogX by educating our customers.
The first thing they can do, and we can recommend to our customers, is to give their customers the option of either “Opt-in” or “Opt-out”. Those two terms alone have been discussed at length at our dinner table.
There is legislation in Australia that requires businesses to provide an “Opt-out” option for customers but generally, once you sign up for something, you’ll automatically be assumed to have opted in for marketing purposes, so you’ll get #spammed continuously. This also applies to online shopping. Once you register for an account with a business, they can send you updates, newsletters, etc.
But what if you could opt-out of these items when you sign up?
Or maybe just receive 1 gift card with your first order and no more after that? Or maybe you just want the catalogue every month but not the gift card?
Interesting concept but this is where it gets tricky. Most customers who involve us have a reason to involve us and that reason is usually that they are not efficient enough or are looking to automate.
So how could they possibly be able to set up their systems and warehouse operations such that my wife will either get no gift cards, or just 1 with her first order while at the same time sending gift cards to other customers who do like to receive a gift card with every order they place?
The first thing is to ensure the back-end systems are capable of capturing this information so when a customer signs up for an account, they have the choice of “Opt-in”, “Opt-out” or “Opt-out except first order” or “Opt-out except catalogue”. That is probably the hardest bit to be honest. Although most ecommerce software will have this choice, most warehouse management or warehouse execution software won’t have this choice. That shouldn’t stop our customers from implementing this though. Provided the ecommerce software can keep track of the customers’ choice it can send the information through to the warehouse management or warehouse execution system with every order placed. That way the warehouse side of the business will just be told to either add a gift card to an order or not.
But how will the gift card, or gift cards, or catalogue, or whatever else needs to be added to an order, end up in the order carton/satchel once the warehouse is told what to do?
To date, most warehouses we walk into have a manual process to add what we call “collateral” to each order. This ranges from invoices to packing slips, return slips, gift cards, catalogues and even Christmas cards.
One of the first things we usually ask is: “how does the packing operator know what to add to each order?” This is where we usually get our first strange look because the answer usually is: “well, they just follow the work instructions that are printed at their packing station.”
Or: “the system will tell them to add collateral to each order.”
Or the classic: “whatever the system prints for them plus the gift card, plus the catalogue, plus a thank you note.”
We usually observe operators at pack stations for an hour or so and the amount of times we see either nothing is added to the carton/satchel or 3 identical gift cards are added (that would drive my wife nuts!) or they have already closed the satchel and then the system decides to print the invoice because the print queue was too full.
If a business can fix the choice option in their business software, automation can help to dispense whatever is required specifically to each order.
When I was at SSI Schaefer, we had what was called “Handling machines”. A range of machines that could automatically insert invoices, packing slips or A5/A6 labels. Fully automated, these machines would print what was required and drop it into the order carton/tote based on what order was associated with the barcode on the carton/tote.
Source: SSI Schaefer
PSI Engineering had something similar with an invoice/packing slip printer that could be implemented by anyone who required one.
Source: PSI Engineering
That was over 5 years ago and since then there has been a myriad of new devices brought to market which can add any type of collateral to an order. Originally these were found mostly in mail order businesses or manufacturing environments and they have now found their way into warehouses.
You can now insert anything from a Credit Card format, which is what most gift cards are, up to A4 catalogues and everything in between. There are now machines which can batch items together on a conveyor line, so you drop a whole pack of documents and collateral into an order carton/tote or just a single unit.
In this Fuzzy Friday we’re going to focus on just a few samples though. One is the Credit Card format insertion and the other is the Invoice/Pack slip insertion.
Credit Card Insertion
Source: PSI Engineering
PSI engineering adapted their LC InFeeder (shown above) to insert credit card-sized cards into order totes, which would be perfect for gift cards and even SIM cards. In the case of items that need to be accurately tracked, the machine can also scan and record barcodes prior to inserting the card into a given order tote – especially useful for applications such as SIM cards. Don’t worry, it also includes a handy rejection system in the event of a barcode no-read. Similar to its big brother that is used to dispense larger format products such as catalogues or other promotional material, the machine has a magazine of cards that it uses as a buffer and ejects a single card onto a belt which then travels towards the chute in preparation to be dropped into a tote. If scanning is required, the machine scans the card just before it drops down the chute at a rate of approximately 30 per minute.
This would be a perfect addition for any operation that needs to insert cards into order totes prior to repacking or shipping. Automating this step reduces manual handling and with that the potential for errors – which means your customers get the right number of gift cards – rather than none or too many. In case your customers can receive one or more cards from a multiple selection, several of these machines can be placed together in-line with the tote stopping to receive a card where needed.
Invoice/Pack slip insertion
Streamtech
PSI Engineering, SSI Schaefer and Streamtech also have invoice/pack slip insertion solutions. These involve a standard printer linked with a machine that drops all A4 or A5 printed sheets into an order tote/ carton. Depending on printer speeds, there will be an upper limit on the number of sheets that can be printed per order tote. Before arriving at the machine, the order tote is scanned to create the link to the order contained within the tote and to download the documents to the printer. Depending on the system, the printed documents are ejected using a chute or dropped into the tote. Most systems will also provide functionality to verify the printed documents to ensure they’re meant for the order tote at the insertion point. If not, the tote will need to be handled at an error station by an operator. The Streamtech FoldSerter and the PSI PrintFeeder also provide the option to fold the papers prior to insertion!
This week, we’ve only touched on a few examples of end-of-the-line automation, but there are a multitude of options out there – even for very specific industries and products. Both examples above have the potential to bring tremendous value to your warehouse operation, especially the invoice/pack slip insertion. Automating end-of-the-line processes such as these reduce the chance of errors and especially time spent on repeated or mundane manual tasks, such as waiting time for a printer. If you feel like your operation could improve with one of these solutions, contact us and we’ll help you see what’s the best fit!
Bas Schilders is the principal consultant at Fuzzy LogX who are the leading warehouse, logistics, and process improvement consultants in Australia. With a career spanning 2 continents and 20 years in warehouse improvements and solution implementations, Bas is one of the most experienced consultants in the country when it comes to logistics improvements and implementing warehouse automation solutions.
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