Sensors provide competitive advantages

Technology provides manufacturers with competitive advantages, according to the Automatic Data Capture Association (ADCA).

ADCA says that automatic data capture technologies can provide significant savings across a number of different areas. In turn, these savings significantly shorten the return on the investment made in installing the technology as there are many areas where savings can occur.

They can include reduced staffing, raw materials, time, errors as well as improved productivity and efficiency. To be competitive it is just not viable to have manual systems that are prone to human error. They need to be reduced, if not entirely eliminated. Raw materials should be tracked to improve inventory control.

ADCA notes that one of the biggest issues facing quality control managers in the food industry for example is the need to ensure that the quantity of product provided in every single packet of food going through production is at least that which is specified on the packaging. Manufacturers are subject to heavy fines if the actual quantity provided is below specification.

To compensate minimum supply quantities are assured by supplying a small percentage of additional product to each packet. While this may resolve the problem, it obviously adds considerably to the cost of production, causing the manufacturer to be less competitive.

The answer, according to ADCA is to improve the manufacturing process by deploying better monitoring equipment.