Zebra Technologies Corporation, an innovator at the front line of business with solutions and partners that deliver a performance edge, announced that BE Switchcraft has adopted Zebra’s radio frequency identification (RFID) solution to gain real-time visibility of its manufacturing process and financial data to help better fulfil its customers’ expectations.
Why did BE Switchcraft adopt Zebra’s RFID solutions?
Based in Adelaide, BE Switchcraft is a manufacturer of customised electrical switchboards for large building applications like the Parliament House Canberra, Adelaide Convention Centre, and Port Moresby Football Stadium. Each switchboard is tailored to the clients’ requirements based on the needs of their respective building projects, which makes it a critical component.
Therefore, BE Switchcraft needs to constantly update its customers on their switchboards’ manufacturing progress. As its business undergoes rapid growth, BE Switchcraft’s manual tracking process could no longer keep up with the increased workload. It needed to enhance its existing tracking process with automation to make updates timelier and more accurate.
To enhance BE Switchcraft’s processes, Zebra PartnerConnect business partner, Datanet, introduced an radio frequency identification solution which included Zebra’s FX9600 Fixed RFID readers, complemented by Zebra-compatible RFID antennas and an RFID label printer.
The radio frequency identification (RFID) helps the BE Switchcraft team gain real-time visibility into each stage of its switchboard manufacturing process. The data is integrated with BE Switchcraft’s MYOB enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to provide valuable updates on the status of each project and financial data associated with the projects in production.
What were the executives’ thoughts on the partnership?
“We needed real-time visibility into what was happening on our manufacturing floor. We started off with manual processes which were ineffective because the data collected became outdated before we could even analyse it,” said Anthony Spadavecchia, MD, BE Switchcraft.
“We then upgraded to a barcode scanning solution. While this had its merits, it required physical scanning of the switchboards and their accompanying documents by our staff, which was not fully optimised for our manufacturing workflows. To continue our rapid growth rate, we needed to find an innovative partner who could help us deploy an even better solution.”
Commenting on the partnership, Steve Jenkins, State Manager / RFID Consultant, Datanet said, “We worked closely with BE Switchcraft to truly understand their challenges before recommending Zebra’s RFID solution, and subsequently helping with the implementation.”
“We are very excited that our RFID solution has helped BE Switchcraft achieve real-time visibility for its manufacturing operations. With this robust automated data capture solution in place, BE Switchcraft can now further differentiate themselves in the eyes of their customers while simultaneously supporting their continued rapid growth across the region,” commented Tom Christodoulou, Sales Vice President of Australia and New Zealand at Zebra Technologies.
