Never before have we needed to be so dynamic

‘Unprecedented times’ has been quoted a lot lately and certainly I have never experienced a national crisis on the level we’re seeing with coronavirus.

As we watch events unfolding, only history will reveal exactly how prepared we were for Covid-19 in terms of healthcare provisioning, feeding and supporting the nation, and business recovery. 

Like others, I have been both shocked and humbled by the polar opposites of human behaviour these past few weeks but the one thing that has made me especially proud is how our sector has risen to the challenge of getting food and supplies out to people.

The Government appears to be trying to do its best in supporting businesses, relaxing food delivery curfews being just one example, and maybe going even further by allowing extensions to drivers’ hours.

To fulfil the increased demand on home deliveries, supermarkets have had to step up activity with brands like Morrisons reported to be recruiting a further 3,500 pickers, drivers and supports staff at its distribution centres and call centres. 

But provisioning for colossal spikes in demand like this will not easy from either a recruitment perspective or a technology one, especially when no one knows how long this crisis will last. Recruits will need to be brought up to speed quickly with processes to minimise downtime, and this is where technology could certainly help with their tuition. 

In a previous blog, I touched on how voice-directed warehousing could help reduce training times, achieve higher accuracy, efficiency and productivity and that’s what companies will be seeking right now. Attracting this great new swathe of pickers to supply the demand, especially a younger workforce, could prove a real challenge when jobs like picking can be repetitive. One way to make it more appealing is by equipping staff with technology they’re familiar with; Android.

Its familiar interface is fast and easy to use and workers can get up to speed in hours as opposed to days. New Android touchscreen devices can help operations work at full speed, by capturing multiple barcodes in one scan.

It’s technology like this that not only helps facilitate the training of new recruits but will also improve warehouse processing, enabling firms to better control their stock and send it where it’s needed most. You need full visibility of everything and it’ll be visibility solutions built on peerless Wi-Fi networks and RFID infrastructure that will give retailers and manufacturers the information and agility they need to capitalise on customer demands. Powerful mobility tools empower workers, boosting productivity in every inch of the warehouse.

At such a critical time, some of our customers have found that being able to increase the flexibility of their mobile computing solutions by renting the kit rather than laying out capital to buy it has really helped make them more dynamic.

While our own operational hubs are on lockdown we continue to support our 3000+ customer contracts. We have a duty to ensure the supply chains we support run smoothly. We’re all in this together, whether it’s supporting our business community or our own local community. A big thank you to all our frontline staff, we couldn’t do this without you.