New Mobile Handheld Features to Bridge the Supply Chain & IoT

Let’s face it, we love to zap information off of things - scanning a barcode, beaming an NFC message, or as mundane as acquiring a Bluetooth device’s signal.

Part of the enthusiasm with today’s mobile devices is the ease of getting data from a simple swipe, settings change or scan motion.

This speaks to the ease of mobile devices and what rapid data acquisition inputs can bring to the warehouse facility and next shipping touch-point.

Moreover, these advancements can bring new models and transformative business process to the warehouse, and operational data to IoT projects on the enterprise side.

To start down this path, designers can overcome current supply chain handheld technology limitations and engineer new methods to access and enrich IoT data that originates from the hands of warehouse personnel.

Here we will dive into both traditional and new data formats on the horizon in next-generation supply chain handhelds and tablet PCs, namely:

1. The use of RFID input in the facility
2. The use of Optical input in the facility
3. The use of Infrared (IR) thermal reading in the facility
4. The use of Vehicle CAN Bus in detachable fleet management systems

While exploring these formats, we should keep in mind that Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) plays a huge role as the technology ensures the data is also parsed and is automatically uploaded to the cloud.