Smiths News Case Study

 

 

 

Requirements

Smiths News required printers to replace their existing

estate of Citizen CLP8301 wide format thermal printers,

used for producing consignment notes for their ‘TOP’

magazine packing lines at 20 locations, along with

barcoded bundle labels.

 

On the ‘TOP’ packing lines, a variety of magazines are

packed using the semi-automatic pick by light system.

Bulk magazines supplied from publishers are broken

down into the individual order requirements of the 22,000 newsagents and media outlets served daily by

Smiths News, and distributed in secure plastic ‘tote’ boxes. Orders large enough to warrant a ‘full’ bundle of a

magazine are barcode labelled and distributed with the

totes.

 

Smiths News also wanted a number of printers to produce ‘tote closing tickets’. These tickets would be

used to indicate when a tote box is ready for shipping.

 

The solution

The existing estate of Citizen CLP8301 printers,

previously supplied and supported by The Barcode

Warehouse, had been reliable, but were coming to the

end of their lease term, so a replacement was required.

After lengthy discussions, The Barcode Warehouse was

again chosen to replace the printers with over 60 brand

new Citizen CLP8301 printers, with tear-wait sensors at

the ‘TOP’ line magazine packing locations across the UK,

along with the same printer in the ‘back office’ configured for labels.

For the tote closing tickets, 43 Citizen CL-S700 thermal

printer were chosen and installed. As previously provided by The

Barcode Warehouse, all hardware is fully supported by a

comprehensive 2-year on-site managed service, complete with swapout

printers as required.

 

Benefits

The solution provided by The Barcode Warehouse has

continued to offer cost benefits to Smiths News. The full, on-site managed

service, with hot-swap printer availability ensures that Smiths

News continue to achieve their requirements of realising a total

peace-of-mind solution.

 

About Smiths News

Smiths News is the UK’s leading newspaper and magazine wholesaler. The business, over recent

years, has focused on the development of award winning solutions to support their customers,

and invested millions of pounds in technology and the distribution network.

The company operates 44 distribution centres throughout England and Wales, has more than

4,100 employees and uses around 1,200 contractors. They serve 22,000 retailers big and

small and deliver 59 million newspapers and magazines a week. Smiths News operates a

dedicated service 24 hours a day, 364 days a year.

 

 

 

 

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