To minimize the spread of infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not just important to wash our hands, avoid touching our face, and maintain social distancing. It’s also critical to disinfect and clean our mobile devices regularly, especially in the healthcare industry and in enterprise businesses that are providing essential services. The same will apply to businesses that re-open in the future under local guidelines and restrictions.

For healthcare providers and businesses that use Zebra enterprise mobile devices, here are some important tips and reminders about disinfecting and cleaning your Zebra hardware at this crucial time.

1. Know the right way to clean your mobile devices.

Disinfecting mobile computers, tablets, printers, scanners, and other devices is critical to infection control in workplaces and public spaces. It’s especially vital for protecting healthcare workers on the front lines against the COVID-19 virus.

A device cleaning policy should be in place and enforced in every organization, to ensure that employees are properly disinfecting their devices on a regular basis.

Guidance must be specific to each device since different devices are manufactured with different components and materials, and their physical designs vary.

If you’re using healthcare-grade Zebra devices, Zebra Technologies has issued disinfection guidelines for Zebra healthcare-grade scanners, printers, and mobile computers. Click the preceding links to access those guidelines.

For non-healthcare models of Zebra products, you can look up the User Guide for your exact model on the support section of Zebra’s website and turn to the Cleaning Instructions section. Once you’ve accessed the user guide, search the document for the word “clean,” and that should take you to the appropriate section.

In Zebra’s user guides, you’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to thoroughly disinfect each device’s casing, buttons, screen (if applicable), and more. You can also confirm which cleaning agents are safe to use, including the purity or formulation levels for each ingredient.

If anything is unclear or you have questions, contact our team at SK&T, and we’ll be happy to help.

For those in the healthcare industry, we also recommend reading Zebra’s white paper, “Best Practices for Infection Prevention,” written by Darrel Hicks, a nationally recognized expert in infection control. The paper provides recommendations for additional precautions the healthcare industry should take to protect the health of providers and patients.

2. Protect your devices from virtual viruses too.

Unfortunately, anytime there’s a crisis, cybercriminals and scammers take advantage of the chaos to victimize people. This is why it’s important to make sure all your enterprise mobile devices are protected against virtual viruses and other IT security threats.

Our partners at Zebra have an excellent white paper on this topic as well, called “Establishing a Robust Mobile Security Policy.” It covers the key risks to mobile devices and how you can avoid them. There’s also a good overview of Zebra’s current security platform here.

Make sure you’re following the recommended security guidelines and that your devices have the latest updates and protections to keep them safe.

3. Reach out for support when you need it.

If you’re having any problem with your mobile devices, or if your current mobile infrastructure isn’t keeping up with your tracking and automation needs during the COVID-19 pandemic or beyond, contact our experts at SK&T for professional assistance.

We can help you optimize and keep your mobile workflows running to ensure responsiveness and efficiency at this time of great strain on our economy, society, and the healthcare system.

Ask us any question about any mobility issue. Contact an SK&T technology specialist now and we’ll respond as quickly as possible.

When we’re printing barcode labels, many of us like to save on costs, so we buy cheaper labels and printing supplies. But we don’t realize that the money we save on up-front costs will often turn into much higher costs in the long run.

This is because cheaper labels and printing supplies are usually made with low-grade materials that aren’t consistently manufactured and can actually damage our printers. They can also cause major issues with print quality, label adhesion, and barcode scannability.

In the end, using cheaper supplies adds up to costly printer servicing and repairs and disruptions to scanning and data capture workflows that often far outweigh any savings we got by spending less money at the outset.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the reasons why cheaper barcode labels and supplies cause these problems. We’ll also talk about how to avoid them by spending a bit more to buy high-quality and pre-tested labels and supplies that are properly matched to your application and needs.

Investing in the right supplies is the best way to minimize your labeling costs and ensure seamless data capture processes.  The long-term cost-effectiveness has proven during our 20-plus years of experience in recommending and delivering barcoding solutions across a wide range of industries and use cases. So let’s get started.

Cheap barcode labels and supplies cause a range of costly and damaging issues because they’re designed for low up-front costs and not quality printing and adhesion. They’re also not usually made to match specific labeling application needs, and they’re not designed to minimize wear on your printheads, which is where costly damage and replacements come into play.

How can you tell if your supplies are destined to cause more harm?

One of the first problems is low print quality, whether it’s blurry or faded barcode labels, or some other quality issues. This occurs due to the rougher surfaces of cheap barcode labels, which cause excessive printhead wear.

To compensate for poor print quality, you usually have to make a lot of printer adjustments that require more ink or ribbon, which uses up your supplies. But your printhead still gets worn out prematurely, which can cost you thousands of dollars in early replacements.

Next comes heat sensitivity, especially if you’re using direct thermal printing. Cheap labels are often sensitive to heat and create more print quality issues, requiring more printer adjustments and wasted supplies.

Additionally, if you’re using cheap, low-quality labels, your label adhesives can easily fail, meaning your labels don’t stick. In the end, you can end up with damaged and unreadable labels due exposure to sunlight, moisture, water or chemicals.

If your labels need to adhere and be readable in these conditions, low-cost supplies won’t cut it. You need specialized label materials, adhesives, and printer ribbons, or you’ll end up with smudged, smeared, damaged, scratched, or otherwise unscannable labels that can even fall off.

To avoid all of these issues and minimize long-term labeling costs, it’s always best to choose quality and long-term savings over up-front costs. For true cost savings, it is imperative that you make sure your labels and printing supplies match your application requirements.

What can you do about this problem?

One simple way to do that is to invest in the best barcode labels and supplies. At SK&T, one of our esteemed partners is Zebra Technologies. Zebra, for example, manufactures all of its products with ISO-certified quality processes and rigorous pre-testing to ensure proper adhesion, scannability, durability, and minimal printhead wear.

At SK&T, we carry over 500 stock Zebra printing supplies products, and when you use Zebra printers and agree to use Zebra supplies exclusively, you also get 100% guaranteed protection against premature printhead replacements.

To learn more, contact our labeling experts at SK&T for pricing and recommendations.

Positive and accurate patient identification is absolutely critical in healthcare. A single mistake can lead to a dangerous mix-up of medications, a treatment error, or even death. Sadly, recent statistics show that we have a long way to go in avoiding mistakes and ensuring patient safety through positive identification.

• 3 million people are still injured annually due to medication errors
• 13% of surgical mistakes are directly related to patient ID errors
• 64% of clinicians say a patient is misidentified “very frequently” or “all the time” in a typical medical facility
• 63% of healthcare organizations say incorrect identification at registration is the prime cause

Thankfully, we don’t have to settle for these startling statistics. Technology now makes it much easier to ensure flawless patient identification, and one of the latest innovations is Zebra’s new ZD510-HC healthcare wristband printer paired with Z-Band healthcare wristbands.

Zebra’s ZD510-HC printer is designed specifically to provide the quickest and most effective way to identify patients accurately, from registration throughout the entire continuum of care. It’s validated for use with AllScripts, CareFusion, Cerner, CPSI, Epic, McKesson and all leading admission, discharge and transfer systems.

The ZD510-HC printer integrates with these systems to print barcoded identifying wristbands with exceptional quality, ensuring optimum image durability and first-time scanning, even for narrow barcodes. It also includes a disinfectant-ready and UV-resistant housing to handle regular sanitizing with harsh chemicals as well as exposure to UV light.

The printer is also the easiest wristband printer to use on the market, with fast-loading Zebra Z-Brand wristband cartridges. You can just pop them in and start printing.

Zebra’s Z-Band wristbands come in a wide variety of options, with antimicrobial coatings and hand-sanitizer resistance, so you can prevent the spread of germs while ensuring accurate patient identification and better patient safety.

Z-Bands deliver two to six times the durability of other products, and they’re available in a wide variety of sizes, from infants to adults. Adhesive and clip closures are also available for extra safety, and there are even additional options for sensitive skin.

Importantly, Z-Bands are also MR-Safe, so they don’t present additional patient hazards during MRI procedures.

Each wristband cartridge also contains a smartchip for automatic calibration. The ZD510-HC uses the smartchip to instantly identify the wristband size and automatically configure print darkness and speed settings to ensure optimal quality and maximize wristband durability.

Connectivity is also reliable and easy with Ethernet, USB, USB Host and Bluetooth LE as standard options. You can also choose an optional 802.11ac wireless connection and Bluetooth 4.1 with concurrent wired and wireless communications.

The device is powerfully secure and includes the latest wireless security protocols plus advanced security and management features such as Zebra’s PrintSecure, which allows you to configure your printer to use secure connections, block unwanted access, and protect your data and infrastructure.

The ZD510-HC also simplifies HIPAA compliance with direct thermal printing, so there are no printer ribbons to secure, incinerate or shred.

If easy yet accurate patient identification and improved patient safety are priorities in your healthcare facility, we strongly recommend Zebra’s ZD510-HC wristband printer and Z-Band wristbands. Our technology experts at SK&T have been recommending and deploying Zebra patient identification systems in healthcare facilities for years, and the ZD510-HC is the most convenient, advanced and effective solution we’ve seen to date.

To learn more about the ZD510-HC and Zebra’s patient identification solutions, contact an SK&T technology specialist now for a quick discovery call.

At SK&T, we have over 20 years of experience with clients across almost every vertical. Over the past few decades, we’ve refined and optimized our approach to helping clients improve supply chain operations. The result is a unique total solution plan that we now use with clients in any industry. In this post, we’ll outline our approach and how it benefits clients and their end customers.

Our Unique Approach

First, we take a deep-dive into your operations. We will identify what supplies and media you need to keep and what materials you need to invest in. Once we’ve determined what your needs are, we develop a comprehensive, total solution that identifies, tracks, and manages your assets and transactions.

As a result of our unique approach, our clients see reduced costs, higher return on initial investment, and improved efficiency.

Identifying Your Needs

Because our client base is so diverse, we have expertise in a variety of verticals. Using our in-depth knowledge of operations and best practices in manufacturing, healthcare, education, government, retail, and more industries inform the recommendations we will make for your business’s unique operations.

We’ll also take into account the future of devices while determining your needs. Our GO Zebra trade-in program allows us to get you back up to $650 per device that you swap for a Zebra product. This incentive alone has saved our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.

Most of our recommendations will revolve around areas for improvement and innovation, smarter ways to track and manage assets and supplies, and industry-specific data on how your competitors are utilizing their supply chains for maximum efficiency. Additionally, these recommendations often include specific devices to look into for your specific needs, like the Zebra ZT610 Industrial Printer for your warehouse, Zebra’s DS4308-HC barcode scanner for clinics and hospitals, and the Zebra RFD2000 UHF RFID for retailers.

Developing a Total Solution for You

We are a leading provider of receipt paper, labels, tags, and thermal transfer ribbons. We also know about the best of the best in scanners, mobile printers, RFID tags and readers, and much more.

We’ve provided these supplies and devices in collaboration with Zebra Technologies, the industry leader in scanning and data capture devices. Whether your need is basic or incredibly complex and demanding, we like to ensure that the new set-up we recommend will help you see events happening in your value chain in real time. That way, you can continue to optimize your supply chain—from inventory, employee shift schedules, and warehouse relationships to return and shipping efficiency, ordering regulation, and assembly line production.

The devices we recommend will be durable, reliable, cost-effective, and flexible in nearly any situation. If you need more rugged devices, we’ll take that into account, too. And you don’t have to worry if your current devices are specialized; we’ll scour all of our partners’ product offerings until we find the best device for you.

Reduce Costs, Increase Profits

After implementing our recommendations, our clients typically see higher worker productivity, lower error rates, and less down-time and label waste.

When most clients come to us, we find they last upgraded their technology years ago. Avoid their mistake: don’t let slow or non-updated software affect your bottom line. Upgrading your technology can seem expensive at first, but think about how technology fits into your business’s future. If you anticipate needing specific features or capabilities, try to incorporate a plan for these updates into your new fleet of devices.

Take this opportunity to consult us about the best options for your operations. We promise you’ll be happy to hear about how much money you can save, even with the initial investment required. Contact SK&T today, and let’s start improving your supply chain operations together!

As mobility becomes more indispensable in warehouses and distribution centers, mobile printers bring added efficiency and productivity to multiple aspects of your supply chains. Utilizing mobile printers reduces errors and waste, saves employees time, and improves your return on investment.

A Costly Inefficiency

It’s no surprise that worker productivity decreases when employees have to leave their current task to grab labels from printers. Concentration wanes, delays pile up, and, sometimes, the wrong label can still end up on the wrong package.

Zebra Technologies, one of our partners, is one of the biggest enterprise-level scanner and data capture device manufacturers. Zebra’s study of receiving operations at a specific warehouse revealed that workers had to take nine steps from the current pallet to the printer workstation. The comparative analysis showed that employees were 42% slower to label pallets (almost 50 seconds versus 28 seconds) when using the workstation over a belt-attached mobile printer. When the warehouse found out about this productivity loss, the facility switched all of their employees over to mobile printers.

Profound Benefits for Productivity

Mobile printers can work indoors and outdoors, making them highly versatile and significantly more flexible than desktop printers. Workers can walk outside and start labeling bulky pallets and cargo containers without missing a beat.

If items are moving quickly on conveyor belts or only stopping at the warehouse for a short while before moving on, mobile printers drastically decrease time spent printing labels. On-the-spot labeling is the future, and it comes with a high accuracy rate.

Additionally, a forklift-mounted mobile printer can revolutionize warehouse workflows; errors decrease and incoming items are immediately labeled. It’s not uncommon for 100% of incoming products to be labeled without error.

Unquestionable Quality Assurance

As a result of reduced errors, QA time doesn’t have to be so nerve-wracking anymore. Inspectors use mobile printers for barcodes and shipping labels for QA’d items that indicate next steps.

In Zebra’s study of receiving operations at a warehouse, employees processed items at the put-away stage 62% faster with mobile printers, compared to walking over to the next aisle to pick up labels.

Minute Details Can Save Hours

If you’ve already set up LAN, the initial investment of implementing mobile printing is much lower. In general, eliminating cables saves facility managers thousands of dollars over the lifespan of the workstation printer.

A study on a retailer’s in-store operations found that each worker spent 2 minutes on average every day adjusting cables or making temporary fixes. This translated to a loss of 1.33 hours per week for eight workers. By switching to mobile printers, a team of eight employees gets back almost 5.5 hours per month.

Zebra’s comprehensive line of wireless mobile printers offers many features that suit any facility’s needs. Zebra’s products also come with strong security and network protocols that work with almost any network configuration.

Advantages for Every Vertical

At SK&T, our 20+ year client base spans almost every vertical. As a result, we’re experts in providing total custom solutions for each unique situation. We’ll detail specific productivity boosts in different verticals, along with our favorite pick for a mobile printer that will work in most cases.

Customer-Facing Verticals

In retail, employees can label items on-the-spot, audit prices, and create new price tags with mobile printers. Retail shops work well with any of Zebra’s QLn series. They’re a lightweight, premium solution that employees can clip to their belts or shoulder straps. The QLn series also offers heavier-duty lightweight devices that withstand 5-foot drops on concrete. A strong seal protects against dust and water.

In hospitality, hotels and restaurants can move customers through lines faster by printing receipts or labeling to-go boxes on the fly. Zebra’s iMZ line is perfect for customer-facing businesses. Additionally, the iMZ products look stylish, so they’ll fit into your brand, no matter how high-class or casual your establishment is.

At hospitals and laboratories, mobile printers can label test samples, name tags, medicine doses, and much more. There are several healthcare-specific devices in the QLn line that come equipped with disinfectant-ready plastics to reduce cross-contamination between patients.

Supply Chain Verticals

In manufacturing, mobile printers speed up quality control and inventory labeling. In warehouses, forklift-enabled mobile printers are highly useful for employee concentration and workman’s injury reduction. The QLn series is great due to its lightweight yet rugged exterior in the warehouse. But for field employees, the more rugged ZQ500 line works well for drops from higher heights. Zebra also certifies the ZQ500 line for drop, shock, and vibration.

In logistical settings using mobile printers, documentation is improved and more detailed. Distribution delays decrease, and labels can even be created when products are in transit. Our Zebra recommendations for logistics and transportation echo our recommendations for the manufacturing industry.

What Are You Waiting For?

Most companies are interested in adopting mobile printing solutions; however, according to a 2016 study, only 14% of those companies actually implemented it. Don’t delay—mobile printing can bring cost savings, reduce label waste, improve employee productivity, and move your warehouse into a more efficient workflow immediately.

And if you’re looking to upgrade, our Trade-In program can get you up to $650 back for each mobile printing device when you buy a Zebra solution.

Contact us today and keep your business on the move with mobile printers.