As the world leader in proton exchange membrane fuel cell technology, Ballard Power Systems is committed to providing clean energy solutions. While Oracle Cloud SCM served as the central repository to manage their business, Ballard wanted to use barcoding and scanning to direct the flow of material through their shop floor. Ballard chose RF-SMART as their mobile inventory and manufacturing execution solution based on the recommendation of their implementation partner.
“We needed an easy way to get shop floor information into Oracle Cloud SCM,” said Martin Chow, the team lead for the IPDS/data solutions group at Ballard. Whether receiving or shipping, RF-SMART has streamlined transactions as workers simply follow prompts on the handheld. This eliminates the need for specific system knowledge to complete transactions.
“RF-SMART has simplified the entire transactional process for our workers on the shop floor,” said Martin. “It is extremely user-friendly, straightforward, and time-saving.”
Employees in receiving can now walk and scan items, as opposed to going back and forth to a computer terminal. “RF-SMART lets us be mobile throughout the entire warehouse, making it easy to transact through a Cloud-based set-up,” said Martin.
“We have more real-time transactions with RF-SMART,” Martin said. With this data, they can better understand how materials flow through their shop floor to understand the efficiency of their operations.
Using RF-SMART for printing labels is another way Ballard has brought efficiency and convenience to their warehouse.“RF-SMART makes it easy to set up printers at any location, print on demand and print out WIP labels as the part moves along our assembly line,” Martin said. RF-SMART can print to mobile or desktop printers, complementing the set-up in Ballard’s warehouse.
“It is easy to implement RF-SMART because the backbone is in Oracle Cloud SCM - you are just complementing that with RF-SMART’s mobile features,” said Martin. “And when it comes to administration, it is quite an easy system to work with because it only requires simple configuring to add workstations or configure printers. It’s the easiest portion to manage!”
The same is true when it comes to training. The intuitive nature of RF-SMART makes for a short training time, and the on-screen prompts direct workers step-by-step, keeping employees on task and preventing picking or receiving mistakes.
“Using RF-SMART with Oracle Cloud SCM, we’ve eliminated human error,” Martin said. “It’s made it easy for us to manage our processes in the Cloud."