Recently, I’ve had many discussions with supply chain operations managers about the status of their barcode printers. I observed that there is a big gap between how most people want their printer management to be and how it actually is—it all comes down to perception vs. reality.

I heard about challenges such as entire printer systems breaking down during peak times, operations workforces ordering duplicate or unnecessary supplies, and admins not knowing what’s in their inventory. This can be especially challenging for warehouses that are highly automated already and can increase operations costs.

Printer management in a warehouse can be surprisingly volatile. Everything can be working just fine, then suddenly half your printers stop printing and the other half is offline. I believe these types of problems could be avoided with a better management process and optimized technology to ensure that the equipment is being used to its fullest potential.

Our Avalanche development team set out to find ways to help our customers get ahead of these problems. We asked warehouse operations managers and customers which printer management problems hit them the hardest. Here are the three most common issues we heard that can be addressed effectively by Avalanche Printer Management.

Lack of Visibility

How can you fix a problem you don’t know you have? The Avalanche printer discovery feature finds all of your printers and brings them under management. Once you know what barcode printers you have in your printer network, you can act on alerts as soon as they happen, keep them up to date with the latest firmware, and track when hardware needs to be replaced. Avalanche helps stop breakdowns before they happen, but if anything does come up, it also helps cut down resolution time significantly by showing you exactly where the problem is.

Limited Time

There are only so many hours in the day, and there always seem to be more problems than you have time for. When you are pressed for time, few things are as frustrating as spending hours trying to find a printer, only to do two-minute fixes. Be more efficient and reclaim hours wasted. Avalanche helps you troubleshoot any device at any location from the Avalanche console, eliminating the need to physically hunt down devices. Send SGD, ZPL, and other commands directly to your printers to easily troubleshoot issues, without leaving your desk—all can be done remotely.

Inconsistency

The phrase “consistency is key” gets tossed around a lot when we talk about efficiency, but I rarely hear ruggedized printers described as consistent. Avalanche helps you gain productivity through consistency. It delivers consistency across the warehouse by simplifying and standardizing management processes for all your barcode devices. Push the same files, firmware, and settings from Avalanche to your barcode printers, no matter where they are. Stop troubleshooting printers that have simply been configured incorrectly. And finally, easily create a gold standard that can be sent to every printer in every warehouse across multiple locations with a single deployment, and only spend time troubleshooting real problems.

To learn more about Printer Management, request a demo today!