Distribution centres are working faster and handling more customer orders and medications  than ever. Managing  perishable medicines  in a cold chain is challenging. The cold and damp conditions can cause labels to wrinkle and get damaged, making barcodes harder to read. But it’s crucial to read these barcodes reliably for full traceability.

Many cold chain centres use traditional handheld laser barcode scanners. In cold storage environments, these scanners often need several tries to read a barcode and struggle with damaged codes or codes under shiny material. Additionally, workers must wear gloves to stay warm and avoid contamination, which makes using handheld scanners tricky. All these factors make working in a cold environment difficult and cause costly delays.

Switching to a fixed-mount barcode reader can make a worker’s job easier and faster. This type of reader is mounted in one place, and the worker shows the package’s barcode to the reader before putting the package in its shipping container, leading to faster processing, fewer steps, and less rework from unread barcodes.

Distribution centres often receive palleted goods and need to break down these pallets in order to store them correctly or use the items for Master Data capture. The static or In-flight SWADs can be used to capture master data and help store the information provided in the clients’ Warehouse Management System.

For lower volumes, the pallets are unpacked manually and can be scanned using a hands-free scanner,, which is a fixed barcode reader mounted in a fixed location, instead of a handheld scanner, which can become costly over time due to mishandling and replacements.

Our fixed-mount barcode readers work well even in freezing temperatures. They use High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, autofocus, and advanced decoding algorithms to read 99.9% of barcodes. They quickly flag bad or low-quality codes for fixing and ensure full tracking for cold chain management, making sureperishable products get moving faster.