Datalinx Blog

The language used in the warehouse can a bit confusing! Especially with all the abbreviations, so below are some of the Datalinx team favourites!

3PL: Third party logistics

ADC: Automated data collection

APS: Advanced planning and scheduling

ASN: Advanced shipment notifications are used to notify a customer of a shipment. Often including purchase order numbers, SKU numbers, lot numbers, quantity, pallet or container number, carton number

Whilst it is easy to blame the warehousing system when you scan a 1D linear barcode and it fails to read, often this is not the case and there is a very simple reason for the error. We often find that it might be a quiet zone failure connected to the printing and/or layout of the barcode itself.

The quiet zone is the empty space area around the barcode that enables the scanning device to establish where the barcode begins and ends and thus allow it to read the label.

There is usually a simple reason for a quiet zone error. It could be that when the barcode was printed on the carton the ink “bled” on the absorbent cardboard and thus made the bars a different width rendering them illegible....

Barcode scanners come in all shapes, sizes and types from the traditional basic tethered scanner to wireless hand helds with batch capabilities to RFID based mobile computers. Each device has advantage and disadvantages but when it comes down to it when you exclude price from your comparison the key points you are looking at are; freedom of use and safety and how rugged a device you need.