VANTAGE POINT: Thermal Printing and Application Integration
By Sandeep Rao, Senior Architect Consultant of Retail, CPG and Logistics Unit, Infosys
Consumer goods companies or enterprises tend to acquire a variety of diverse printer hardware and peripherals such as thermal printers for their localized printing needs. Usually these printers are used for specific needs such as label printing. These can also be used for general needs with increased flexibility covering integration to bespoke applications. They can be applied for other needs as well such as item price tags printing, ticket type labels, pre-printed stationery needs, etc.
The advantage of thermal printers over regular ones is the faster output and lower initial costs, good for dedicated setups.
Thermal printers and scanners can be used in a typical consumer goods company in the following processes:
1. In-bound logistics raw material receiving, inspection and labeling
2. Storage and retrieval - warehouse
3. Finish goods production
4. Packaging finished goods
5. Quality control
6. Point of sale in case of direct sales or private label sales
Additionally these printers can be used for the below purposes:
1. Processing instructions printing where changes to finished goods packaging, flavor, color, nutrition content can be communicated to production
2. Routing information printing for routing the materials through various workstations
3. Printing barcodes for quicker processing using barcode readers, easier retrieval of key values and information processing resulting in
a. near real-time accurate picture of inventory.
b. better control on pilferage.
4. Printing different storage temperatures for different finished goods
5. Printing different modes of shipping for variety of finished goods
6. Seasonal changes might prompt changes to information printed
The variety of finished goods produced by a consumer goods enterprise could be so diverse it could start from a simple packaging of raw material in different quantities to microwaveable ready to eats.
The challenges faced in this scenario are:
1. Bloat in software that interface with such devices due to printer control languages embedding within standard software
2. Minimizing cost of software maintenance
3. Non adherence of printer OEMs to standards like UPOS but continuing to support proprietary printer command languages or escape sequence scripting
4. Increasing demand from end user community for speed of print-file generation and flexibility in preparing the payload for printing
Impact on Business
Inability to harness devices for variety of needs
Escalating costs for software
Ongoing hardware operating and support costs
Impact on IT Dept
Standard documents like XML, postscript, PDF cannot be printed on TTPs
Maintaining of printer command language code or escape sequence file is costly
Inability to change for business demands
Building software that is printer device independent appears difficult
Why Typical Approaches Are Not Enough
Typical approaches to address these issues range from provisioning a print server that easily gets overloaded to individual application and printer set maintenance that turns out to be expensive.
Sometimes in enterprises we find applications hardwired to thermal printers, a simple change would me expensive changes requests for applications.
There are products in the market that provide the flexibility of designing templates, given the data extracts from applications these products provision a print server that binds templates to data and print on the printers preconfigured on the print server.
The sheer scale of the enterprise can overwhelming for the print server, whereas buying multiple print servers will increase costs. Multiple print server approach has problems matching to different application silos within the enterprise.
RFID labels are also the new promising technology, but thermal-barcode-labels printing is slightly more cost effective.
Viewpoint
Best recommended approach for addressing these issues is with the below steps:
1. Decouple application silos from print functionality
2. Provision a flexible design tool for label templates creation
3. Provision centralized service to synchronize information amongst silos
4. Provision print plug-in service for silos in disconnected mode
While rewriting applications, migrating the applications to RFID labels can also be explored as an option.
Conclusion
Thermal printers are an essential peripheral for consumer goods industry. The manageability issues arising with these peripherals can be addressed with a balanced approach of product choice for label template design and custom bespoke development involving provisioning services for application silos that helps decouple the printing piece.
______________________________________________________
Sandeep Rao is a senior architect consultant of Retail, CPG and Logistics Unit at Infosys. He has over 18 years of IT implementation and consulting experience in various industries including CPG. His brief profile is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeeprao
For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected]
Consumer goods companies or enterprises tend to acquire a variety of diverse printer hardware and peripherals such as thermal printers for their localized printing needs. Usually these printers are used for specific needs such as label printing. These can also be used for general needs with increased flexibility covering integration to bespoke applications. They can be applied for other needs as well such as item price tags printing, ticket type labels, pre-printed stationery needs, etc.
The advantage of thermal printers over regular ones is the faster output and lower initial costs, good for dedicated setups.
Thermal printers and scanners can be used in a typical consumer goods company in the following processes:
1. In-bound logistics raw material receiving, inspection and labeling
2. Storage and retrieval - warehouse
3. Finish goods production
4. Packaging finished goods
5. Quality control
6. Point of sale in case of direct sales or private label sales
Additionally these printers can be used for the below purposes:
1. Processing instructions printing where changes to finished goods packaging, flavor, color, nutrition content can be communicated to production
2. Routing information printing for routing the materials through various workstations
3. Printing barcodes for quicker processing using barcode readers, easier retrieval of key values and information processing resulting in
a. near real-time accurate picture of inventory.
b. better control on pilferage.
4. Printing different storage temperatures for different finished goods
5. Printing different modes of shipping for variety of finished goods
6. Seasonal changes might prompt changes to information printed
The variety of finished goods produced by a consumer goods enterprise could be so diverse it could start from a simple packaging of raw material in different quantities to microwaveable ready to eats.
The challenges faced in this scenario are:
1. Bloat in software that interface with such devices due to printer control languages embedding within standard software
2. Minimizing cost of software maintenance
3. Non adherence of printer OEMs to standards like UPOS but continuing to support proprietary printer command languages or escape sequence scripting
4. Increasing demand from end user community for speed of print-file generation and flexibility in preparing the payload for printing
Impact on Business
Inability to harness devices for variety of needs
Escalating costs for software
Ongoing hardware operating and support costs
Impact on IT Dept
Standard documents like XML, postscript, PDF cannot be printed on TTPs
Maintaining of printer command language code or escape sequence file is costly
Inability to change for business demands
Building software that is printer device independent appears difficult
Why Typical Approaches Are Not Enough
Typical approaches to address these issues range from provisioning a print server that easily gets overloaded to individual application and printer set maintenance that turns out to be expensive.
Sometimes in enterprises we find applications hardwired to thermal printers, a simple change would me expensive changes requests for applications.
There are products in the market that provide the flexibility of designing templates, given the data extracts from applications these products provision a print server that binds templates to data and print on the printers preconfigured on the print server.
The sheer scale of the enterprise can overwhelming for the print server, whereas buying multiple print servers will increase costs. Multiple print server approach has problems matching to different application silos within the enterprise.
RFID labels are also the new promising technology, but thermal-barcode-labels printing is slightly more cost effective.
Viewpoint
Best recommended approach for addressing these issues is with the below steps:
1. Decouple application silos from print functionality
2. Provision a flexible design tool for label templates creation
3. Provision centralized service to synchronize information amongst silos
4. Provision print plug-in service for silos in disconnected mode
While rewriting applications, migrating the applications to RFID labels can also be explored as an option.
Conclusion
Thermal printers are an essential peripheral for consumer goods industry. The manageability issues arising with these peripherals can be addressed with a balanced approach of product choice for label template design and custom bespoke development involving provisioning services for application silos that helps decouple the printing piece.
______________________________________________________
Sandeep Rao is a senior architect consultant of Retail, CPG and Logistics Unit at Infosys. He has over 18 years of IT implementation and consulting experience in various industries including CPG. His brief profile is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeeprao
For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected]