Every day warehouses and distribution centres are processing and labelling thousands of shippable units to prepare them for distribution both domestically and internationally.

Every day, these same warehouses and distribution centres may be losing valuable profits and resources due to wastage caused by employees working from conventional desktop label printers located at workstations around the warehouse.

Although long considered to be a cost-effective label printing solution, large warehouses relying upon one or two stationary desktop printers are suffering wastage in several key areas:

• Large workstations can put a severe strain on limited floor space which could be better utilised as extra storage space for goods or freight.
• Labelling process is inflexible and prone to errors and timewasters as the workstations are in fixed and possibly inconvenient locations.
• Multiple trips between labelling workstation and storage point of goods is time-consuming, especially if the workstation is not located near the area the operator is working in or if there is a high volume of staff all requiring the use of a single label printer.
• High risk of errors in correctly labelling goods, especially if operators attempt to print large batches of labels per trip in an attempt to save time lost in travel to the labelling workstation. This could have further implications for losses by the business if the labelling error is not recognised by the operator and the incorrect goods are shipped to the receiver and subsequently rejected.

Upgrading stationary desktop label printers to a fleet of portable label printers addresses these key areas of wastage. Portable printers improve efficiency by fully optimising and error-proofing the labelling process. By giving each operator their own portable label printer and barcode scanner, they effectively each become a mobile goods receiving centre. This improves productivity and efficiency by allowing workers to print and apply on-demand labels directly at the point of application.

In addition to saving time due to the worker no longer having to make multiple trips to the labelling workstation, this also eliminates the likelihood of mixing up batch printed labels which in turn can save thousands of dollars in potential shipping errors. An added benefit of a mobile labelling workforce is that it is increasing cost efficiencies by increasing the floor space available to the storage of inventory or shippable items.