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Tesco
T6100 & T6215 line printers
Company Profile
Tesco is the UK’s largest food retailer, and has a total 692 stores in Great Britain, Central Europe and Asia. The company’s strategy for the UK is focused in three key areas: food, non-food, and retailing services, such as its e-commerce operation, Tesco.com and Tesco Personal Finance. A fourth interest is the International division, which increased the proportion of total business outside the UK to 30% in 2000.
Situation & Requirement
The company employs 240,000 staff, serving millions of customers each week. In support of its aim to “earn customers’ lifetime loyalty,” the company employs a meticulous supply chain strategy. Key to this is its distribution and logistics operation. Tesco stores in Great Britain are supported by a network of 8 stocked Distribution Centres (DCs), and 12 composites DCs that store department-specific goods, such as fresh produce or home products. An in-house IT department is responsible for overseeing the entire distribution and logistics operation.
Accurate labelling of packages and consignments play a vital role in this operation, ensuring that goods reach the correct store in the shortest time possible. Labels and barcodes need to be printed, and to fulfil this function Tesco has turned to line printers from Tally Ltd. Tesco has in excess of 160 Tally line printers, 10 housed at each composite, and 5 at each stocked DC.
“Printing has always been a very important issue within Tesco DCs,” says Tesco IT Supply Chain Business Analyst, Don Stubley. “We require robust, reliable printers that can produce hundreds of lines of text and data per minute, in what are very busy, often dusty, temperature-affected environments.”
Application
Printers are mainly located in purpose-built print rooms, while at some sites Tesco is now putting them on goods-in bays so that printed reports are made more accessible for order checkers. Tally invented line printing technology in 1970, and has pioneered its development ever since. Over the years it has proven a consistently put-to-use option in labour-intensive environments. Tesco uses two Tally models from its line printer range, the T6100 and T6215, capable of delivering 1020 and 1500 lines per minute respectively. They provide the essential link between each store’s order and the distribution of those goods to the store. The printers are used for producing case labels that contain vital information needed each and every day. This includes:
1. Picking location where specific items are held
2. Store number to which goods will be delivered
3. Invoice number relating to a store’s order
4. Product number and description
5. Date the item was picked
The ability to read the label is a significant contributor to preventing unproductive stock handling. The Tally series of line printers has been developed to ensure this is optimum. Shuttle and hammerbank modules, together with robust paper handling mechanisms, provide fault-free paper movement and printing at extremely high speed.
The Tally line printers are connected via a co-ax network, which links all sites to an IBM-compatible AMDAHL mainframe. Tally’s Strategic Business Partner, Datatrade, developed and integrated the co-ax interface to ensure printer compatibility with all Tesco applications.
Results
“A large DC will print some 300,000 labels per day, with a single batch being in the region of 25,000 labels,” adds Stubley. “This means that fast throughput capability of the printers is just as important as their ability to print high volumes over long periods. Some of these printers are working away virtually 24 hours a day.”
Stubley continues, “We certainly have found the printers to be robust, and have been impressed with the minimisation of our downtime.” In addition, running costs are invariably becoming a prime consideration when selecting printers for specific applications, and, compared with other printer technologies, line printers - which use ribbons rather than costly toner and ink cartridges - come in at a fraction of the running costs. As Stubley comments, “Line printers are workhorses, ideal for production-intense environments. For our application they run to just 5% of the costs associated with laser printing. These printers don’t eat consumables, and the time and money savings associated with this are very significant to us.”
In addition to printing case labels, Tesco also uses the Tally line printers for producing management reports and delivery notes on continuous listing paper. Tesco has also deployed other Tally printers to meet the demands of general office printing. Laser printers can come into their own for many office applications, and Tesco has in excess of 100 Tally laser printers installed.
Looking Forward
Tesco will continue to be a dedicated user of Tally printers, taking in new models as they are made available. Stubley reflects on the evolving partnership, “Both Tally and Datatrade have demonstrated over time their ability to pro-actively work with us to address our evolving requirements. We view them as strategic partners to underpin the supply chain with computer printing solutions.” Importantly, at the end of this supply chain sits the ability to bring to Tesco customers what they want.
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Limited, Rutherford Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 8PD
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