IT Genetics includes in its portfolio a successful collaboration with one of the largest companies in the tobacco industry, Japan Tobacco International (JTI). The solution implemented streamlined the company’s operations in Romania, significantly improving the scanning process of its products, a process that has a direct impact on the number of deliveries.
If we accept the idea that time means money, then in the case of a company with over 1,200 employees, which distributes a significant number of products every day, time translates into considerable resources.
These resources can be lost – when delays occur, or gained – when processes are streamlined.
The challenge
During a modernization campaign applied by the company, JTI Romania changed the code technologies from DotCode into Data Matrix. However, the new codes were scanning slowly with the old barcode readers that the company had at the time.
IT Genetics’ solution
In order to assimilate this transition in a way that would bring tangible benefits to the company, JTI has entered into a partnership with IT Genetics. We had a close collaboration process, and we used a trial and error mechanism to shorten the implementation time as much as possible.
Targeted activities
The solution was applied in the cigarette distribution department within the company: from JTI Romania warehouses to stores.
The European Tobacco Products Directive (TPD2) requires salespeople to scan each pack of cigarettes before dropping them off at the point of sale. Therefore, the agencies in charge of processing and delivering orders have a barcode reader.
This stage is essential in the process of delivering the company’s products and can directly influence the productivity of the entire team.
Tehnical approach
The implemented solution primarily involved the hardware side. However, IT Genetics has also created a custom firmware for JTI, in collaboration with Italian partners at Datalogic. This improvement has visibly increased the scanning speed, even exceeding the market standard.
Implementation time
The project duration was 2 months, during which the options for scanners were analyzed, the chosen option was implemented, the firmware update took place and, respectively, the barcode reading problems, where the employees complained about various incidents, were solved.
Tangible results
The immediate result was a 3-fold reduction in product scanning time.
“In the past, scanning 10 packs of cigarettes took an average of 40 seconds, but there were cases where it could take up to 90 seconds. Some codes were not even scanned, but the barcode reader signaled an error. With the new barcode readers, the scanning time was down to 10-12 seconds constantly, without large time fluctuations. This means that a scan is done about 3 times faster “, explain the JTI representatives.
Benefits earned by the company
Through the implemented solution, the productivity of the field teams has increased, the order processing has become much faster and more efficient. A shorter scan time automatically leads to an efficient delivery process, which has helped agencies make considerably more deliveries.
Customer’s opinion
“I would confidently recommend the solution we are using, but also IT Genetics as a provider, for several reasons:
1. The Datalogic readers implemented are efficient, robust, respond exactly to the needs of our agents and have helped us to improve working times and increase the speed of order processing.
2. The collaboration between us, IT Genetics and Datalogic reached the standards of professionalism we expected. The promptness and openness to meet the needs of our customers convinced us to recommend them every time we have the opportunity.”
