The Evolved Warehousing Solutions of Today's Top 3PLs

The third-party logistics sector has experienced dramatic advancements in the last five year alone, particularly with respect how warehousing solutions have evolved

Today’s global third-party logistics (3PL) companies are going beyond the typical transportation and delivery of goods and services. A complete 3PL service provider specializes in areas of expertise like complete transportation management, warehousing or provision of storage space, reporting, forecasting, freight billing, and auditing and much more.

A full-service 3PL company will provide distribution and supply chain management solutions across various industries. For instance, global warehousing by 3PL companies has gained a lot of popularity as the need for stock pre-positioning grows to prompt clients to seek for faster response for emergencies.

Further, all operations are done by the use of computer-based solutions through sophisticated software that makes management and planning efficiently. Additionally, competent and highly skilled personnel are employed for the effective running of warehousing operations.

Customized Packaging Solutions & Customer Flexibility

3PL companies providing warehousing services often offer custom storage solutions. They offer specialized storage facilities that suit different needs of products to be stored before transportation.

Most 3PL companies offer repackaging services, seasonal adjustments, product assembling and labeling among others. For instance, North American 3PL company, United Facilities, Inc. provides all of these custom packaging and distribution solutions, and as a result, is known as one of the most flexible logistics companies in the world.

All these are meant to safeguard and add value to the product in question. Moreover, other great 3PL companies go to an extent of designing how the product will reach the final customer.

Bonding & Insurance

Professional handling of goods is another notable characteristic that defines today's 3PL warehousing. Insurance is meant to add customer confidence and ensure complete peace of mind. Such types of warehousing insurance services include cargo insurance, warehouse legal liability insurance, workers compensation and general liability. 

Insurance is vital to protect clients against damages during transport.

In the case of damages, particularly any damages during transport, clients then launch their claims for compensation. Any party that uses 3PL service must ensure that their goods are bonded and insured.

Quality Stock Control & Movement

One of the biggest advantages that places the warehousing solutions of today's 3PL companies over general warehousing is their smooth stock control measurements. With the current fast paced changing customer needs, there is a need for the proper establishment of lead-time availability of every single product availed on the market. By ensuring weekly and monthly stock balances and reports, most businesses have enjoyed smooth and reliable running of operations.

Furthermore, most other companies go further to provide record keeping for non-stock items from suppliers and other parties. They use vital documents such as the stock card, bin cards, consignment notes, delivery notes and much more to ensure smooth movement of stock items.

Cost Reduction

With the technological advancement, recent 3PL companies have come up with custom solutions that aim at reducing the logistics, processing, distribution, and management costs of their supply chain management. Through their modern techniques, customers can, therefore, expect to pay less amount than conventional logistics providers.

These logistical cost reduction efforts has helped cut out the traditional labor-intensive techniques. They use modern equipment that saves both labor and keeps operating costs at bay. Cost reduction is a major factor that a business must consider before hiring a 3PL company for warehousing.

Tracking

The need for property safety arises day after day. This is why most recent 3PL companies have put in place efficient tracking services to keep clients informed and educated. the use of logistics-focused tracking benchmarks, strategies, and software is a great stride in the 3PL warehousing sector.

Warehousing is the core competence of every third party logistic company. Most businesses have now outsourced most of their operations to 3PL companies not only for transportation but also for full supply chain management warehousing included. They have added more flexibility to such businesses hence making most transactions easier. Listed above are the features and qualities one must consider in a 3PL company.

5 Cutting-Edge Technologies Revolutionizing Warehouse Automation

As the world embraces technological innovation in many areas of life and commerce, competitive businesses are consistently searching for ways to automate their primary operations for greater efficient. For companies in logistics, warehousing, and distribution, technology is generally the break point or make point. Warehouse businesses in particular use new technology in order to remain competitive in their sector.

Businesses and organizations have accepted technology by automating many of their operations. Automation is a benefit to any business since it leaves little room for mistake, particularly along an assembly area. The business may also meet its set targets easily when it comes to production because of automation. This is unavoidable the approach to take for many of the businesses.

We are now one business that helps other companies install automated equipment into the system. You will discover quite a lot of automated machines available for logistics warehouses as well as distribution centers. A number of them include:

Sortation Systems

Sortation systems are essential warehouse automation investments for big parcels, mailers, cases and other products that go through a sorting process. Functions for sortation sorting machine systems consist of zone routing for pick and then pass application, sort-to-order, shipping sortation and carrier, reject systems and a lot more.

The following are a few examples of typical conveyor sortation items that can be found:

• Overhead sorters: suitable for small items, flats, parcels, and cases. Common for media applications and books.
• Pop up Sortation: A 90 degrees systems that operate in-line with ZPA roller conveyor for case and parcel sortation.
• Pushers as well as diverts: they are for parcel sortation, handling exception, and other apps.
• Merge conveyors: needed when products have to be consolidated for shipment.
• High-speed systems for sortation: like shoe sorters.

Picking Systems

This picking systems order is determined by businesses based on some common factors which include: Some of them include: attribute of the item being handled, picks per order, quantity per pick, value added processing like private labeling and a lot more. A few of the available picking systems include:

• Picking systems design
• Order picking software
• Warehouse robotic solutions
• Dispensing systems

In-motion Cubing & Dimensioning Systems

In-motion cubing and dimensioning systems are utilized to automatically capture dimensions of packages, bags, boxes, and even non-cuboidal or irregular shapes. The dimensioning process is specifically vital for carrier compliance as well as legal for trade apps. Many FedEx and UPS services and most international carriers need dimensional weight calculations on some kinds of shipments. Parcels which measure or calculate over limitations set as a result of carrier's cost more to ship because of dimensional weight factors.

Dimension cubing systems can process as much as 80 parcels per minute based on the carton dimensions. This technology offers some of the advanced dimensioners and cubers used to determine parcel and package dimensions for distribution and shipping. In-motion cubing and dimensioning systems, also known as cubers and dimensioners provide one of the industry's advanced in-motion dimensioning systems for package which is an integral section of the turnkey manifest lines.

Any kind of warehouse distribution center trying to automate its process can easily sure get many items that can be useful along the way. There are a number of machines, warehouse software and automated systems that are great investments for all types of distribution-based businesses.

5 Advancements in Industrial Barcoding Technology

Industrial barcoding technology has witnessed notable advancements over the past several years. These advancements have significantly helped to streamline, automate, and enhance various operations involved with barcode printing, scanning, and related tasks associated with inventory management, logistics, and distribution.


From cutting-edge barcode scanners and readers to progression in today's industrial barcode sensor technology, below are five advancements that define the evolution of industrial barcoding technology.

1. Advanced Symbology

The underlying data matrix of industrial barcoding technology has seen a great improvement in barcodes as it allows manufacturers to trace products easily, and that they are error-proofed. The two dimensional encoding is an improvement from its 1D cousin since it has the ability to represent more data.

Of the various matrix codes available, QR codes find a greater use as they can encode complex patterns including the Japanese Kana and Kanji characters. These camera-based decoders have greatly eased production besides reducing the physical risk exposed to employees who used previous technologies.

2. Barcode Scanner Efficiency

The advancement of encoding technology has led to the development of more reliable and efficient industrial barcode scanners. Unlike laser scanners, digital industrial barcode readers can decode both one -dimensional and 2D barcodes in any direction. They are also used for capturing and transferring images, which facilitates easy capture of signatures.

 Area imagers are the choice devices for reading Direct Part Marking codes in production lines. As a result, area imagers have become significant for decoding critical tracking information and in inventory management. In this case, direct parts marketing/DPM readers play a vital role in cultivating greater efficiency for inventory tracking and management.

3. Precision & Flexibility

Contemporary industrial imagers adequately overcome the challenges of decoding poor quality barcodes. They are better suited for closer range barcodes, especially the 2.5 mil codes. Linear imagers find a wider industrial application than laser scanners due to their better scan time of poor quality labels. Low quality images are a challenge to laser scanners, which often substitute unclear data. On the other hand, linear imagers do not generate code substitutions. Linear imagers have higher scan rates, typically between 200 and 800 scans per second compared to 50 sps in laser decoders.

Solid-state electronics have seen a smooth transition from bulky scanners to portable and handheld barcode decoders. This has made it easy to scan bulky items without the need for lifting. Cordless scanners that make it easy to scan items across a store for inventory purposes. Due to their solid-state nature, imagers are more reliable than lasers. The latter produce a moving spot through a combination of moving mirrors which lowers their suitability in warehouse applications.

4. Sensor Technology

Like other digital detectors in the market, most linear imagers use charge-coupled-device components for detection. However, Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor detectors are finding a broader application due to their reliability and low power consumption. An improvement to this technology is the Active Pixel CMOS Sensors, components that combine the digital processor and the light sensor in one chip. In effect, APS CMOS sensors are smaller, consume less power, and are more reliable than CCD and CMOS sensors.

5. Media Compatibility

The ability to synchronize barcode information with other media in real time is a milestone achievement in industrial barcode scanner technology. Most scanners are adapted for direct connection to a computer through a USB port, and are compatible with typically all operating systems. Depending on the area of application, the scanner software may support automatic download of product details such as name, price, and date of manufacture.

Most barcode scanner software is customized to allow the addition of items in a collection and post classifieds to the internet by simply scanning a barcode. This technological advancement makes online publishing easier and enables faster comparison of product details with related items.