Revolutionizing Data Capture - Barcode Scanner SDK · Bringing enterprise-grade barcode scanning to ... the rugged smartphone/tablet ... centers such as field sales and service to

2016 | AutoID & Data Capture

Revolutionizing Data Capture Bringing enterprise-grade barcode scanning to

everyone

Exclusive License to Distribute:

SCANDIT

By Richa Gupta, Senior Analyst, with David Krebs, Executive Vice President

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VDC Research | 679 Worcester Road, Suite 2 | Natick, MA 01760 | (508) 653-9000 | vdcresearch.com

Table of Contents Table of Contents Introduction—The Situation Exhibit 1: Barcodes enabling the digitization of physical products Scanning Differently Exhibit 2: Data capture solutions ecosystem

Shining the Spotlight on Scandit Connecting with Scandit’s Customer Base Exhibit 3: Scandit’s business development opportunities

Scandit’s Partners—Opening up Opportunities VDC’s View—What Lies Ahead for Scandit Scandit Customer Case Studies

SBB—Swiss Federal Railways Coop Cooperative (Switzerland) Interline Brands, Inc. Imperial Supplies, LLC Cardinal Health

Appendix VDC Research

About the Author About VDC Research

Contact Richa: [email protected]

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Introduction—The Situation Barcodes are synonymous with enterprise supply chain operations such as asset identification, visibility, and

track-and-trace. Everything from packages ordered on Amazon.com to products at the local grocery store to

individual automotive parts and components has a barcode label. This digitization of physical products is central

to product information lookup, merchandise returns, product recalls, traceability, and offering visibility throughout

the supply chain. End users across industries manage a tremendous amount of inventory coming from a variety of

different types of suppliers. Keeping track of individual products/SKUs and getting them into the hands of

consumers efficiently is made possible by the use of data storage tags such as barcode labels and data capture

solutions such as barcode scanners. In the enterprise environment, barcode scanner investments have always

been about best-in-class performance, optimal scanning capabilities, the right ergonomics for scan-intensive

applications, and the ability to enhance operational efficiencies. Enterprises today want all this and more.

Exhibit 1: Barcodes enabling the digitization of physical products

Since the launch of smartphones and other camera-enabled consumer mobile computing devices in the last

decade or so, several application developers have empowered consumers to know more about their purchases,

thereby helping them make informed decisions and elevating their levels of engagement. Several leading retailers

the world over have also enabled their customers to scan products as they shop in their stores with personal

devices or dedicated, retailer-owned mobile shopping systems. QR codes have also been heavily used for

marketing promotions and such, all of which can be decoded using one of several applications available in app

stores on a variety of platforms. All of these initiatives have made barcodes just as ubiquitous to the everyday

consumer as they have been for the enterprise and industrial supply chains, albeit for very occasional barcode

scanning in perfect conditions. VDC sees this “occasional scanning” constraint changing with the design and

development of high-performance applications that can potentially enable much higher-throughput enterprise-

grade scanning.

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There is now an installed base of more than 1 billion smartphones and hundreds of millions of tablets. VDC’s

research shows that the data capture industry is expanding its footprint to now proactively leverage the

capabilities of these powerful computing devices by introducing solutions that enable enterprise-grade

performance on these smartphones and tablets. Not only are these solutions helping consumers and small

businesses to take greater advantage of barcode scanning functionality, but they are enabling large enterprises to

mobilize a higher percentage of their workforce and workflows, and also supporting them in their endeavor to take

advantage of the BYOD (bring your own device) trend.

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Scanning Differently The data capture industry is undergoing significant change. Barcode scanning capability is no longer restricted to

traditional form factors like pistol grip handhelds or rugged mobile devices. Neither is this the sole purview of

businesses; now consumers are also scanning barcodes to gain access to product information and take charge of

their shopping experience. Pairing or integrating scanning functionality with new-age consumer devices is

becoming a popular option for barcode scanning applications for consumers and line-of-business (LOB) workers.

New and emerging solution providers, including independent software vendors like Scandit, are changing the way

the world views barcode scanning and devices that enable the same. Products from traditional market leaders

such as Datalogic, Honeywell, and Zebra Technologies face competition from not only lower-cost scanners in

conventional form factors but also non-traditional participants building scanner accessories and developing

software enhancements for smartphones, tablets, and now wearables.

Exhibit 2: Data capture solutions ecosystem

Rugged mobile computers and consumer-grade smartphones/tablets now support LOB workers across nearly all

industry verticals. The introduction of a new form factor to the mix, namely the rugged smartphone/tablet (or

devices with rugged or specialized cases to support enterprise workflows), has only opened up the list of device

options available to end users. These devices are similar in design and user experience to the consumer-grade

smartphone, but they feature enterprise-grade levels of ruggedness and daylight readability. This makes them

particularly well-suited in environments that require a touch-centric device with integrated data capture

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functionality, along with a modern user interface that doesn’t require intensive worker training. These rugged

cased or non-rugged consumer smart devices have enhanced features and capabilities that are not always

present in the base models of traditional, purpose-built rugged handhelds today. Enterprise investments in these

non-traditional mobile computing devices are not ad-hoc anymore. More organizations in field service, logistics,

and retail are now proactively evaluating and even making investments in widely available consumer device and

rugged smartphone/tablet options, choosing these over purpose-built data capture solutions. Their use in

operating environments with less scan-intensive applications is especially gaining ground, but with rapid

evolutions in mobile scanning technology, it is clear that smartphone-based scan volumes of today will be dwarfed

by those of the future.

VDC believes the opportunity is particularly ripe in retail establishments for apparel, grocery, and specialty goods

(like furniture and electronics) for inventory management, clienteling, mPOS, and self-shopping applications, as

well as in other commercial centers such as field sales and service to help facilitate order entry, asset tracking,

picking, proof-of-delivery, and fulfillment applications. Businesses across all tier levels want to capitalize on these

devices’ high availability, ease of use, intuitiveness, and user familiarity to facilitate end-to-end data capture

functionality. When combined with the appropriate accessories, software application packages, and device

management support, consumer devices can compete with purpose-built solutions in several application

environments.

This trend has made enterprise-grade barcode scanning and data capture accessible to a much broader audience

than before. The list includes everyone from small, local businesses and mom-and-pop establishments to large

Fortune 500 corporations. Consumer smart device adoption is not restricted to any specific section of users; there

is a range of smartphones and tablets available across a broad spectrum of price points, making these very

accessible regardless of an individual or business’ financial status, industry, or region. Historically, barcode

scanning using these devices has been a cumbersome process requiring significant camera alignment and

barcode label re-positioning to enable data capture. Now software platforms like the one by Scandit have made

barcode scanning using regular smartphones and tablet a relatively easy undertaking.

Scandit is a mobile image processing and cloud computing software vendor headquartered in Zurich, with

marketing and sales offices in San Francisco. The company developed a software platform that can be used

and/or customized by solution providers for end-to-end, vertical-specific applications that enable smartphones and

other consumer mobile devices to facilitate enterprise-grade barcode scanning using just their built-in camera.

Scandit’s platform offers applications for iOS and Android-based smart devices and wearables such as Google

Glass and Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch. By making its Barcode Scanner SDK available to the broader

application developer community, Scandit, and some other alternative data capture solutions like it, are making

high quality, omnidirectional barcode scanning capability accessible for a much wider audience. Their biggest

advantage is the ability to potentially bring down upfront investment costs as users no longer require additional

hardware (peripheral or integrated) to fulfill their barcode scanning requirements. While Scandit’s solutions start

off as being supplementary to dedicated, purpose-built scanning devices, the company has helped end-user

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organizations, primarily large enterprises in industries ranging from transportation and logistics to retail and field

sales/service, completely replace legacy data capture solutions with smart devices. Scandit is also actively

capitalizing on rising popularity of such concepts as BYOD and migration from investments in purpose-built data

capture solutions to other smart devices.

Shining the Spotlight on Scandit

Founded in 2009, Scandit is a mobile image processing and cloud computing software vendor. Its Barcode

Scanner SDK for iOS, Android, and Windows among other platforms, enables the camera on smart devices to

capture barcode information from any angle, offering high read rates and high levels of scanning efficiency. The

company licenses its barcode scanner platform to hundreds of customers around the globe, and its solutions are

used across all major verticals. Scandit-powered apps are downloaded on millions of active mobile devices and

generate more than half a billion scans per year. In addition to the barcode scanning component, the company

also offers fully customizable mobile applications for the retail and transportation and logistics industries. The

development community can use Scandit’s customizable apps to create end-to-end solutions, and enterprises can

customize these apps in-house to fit their needs.

From a technical standpoint, Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK is constantly evolving and improving to support

enhanced scanning capabilities equipped to support a broad range of barcode symbologies so it can compete

with purpose-built OEM imager scan engines developed by AIDC industry veterans. Decode speeds, processing

times, performance in highly variable light conditions, and motion tolerance may vary from purpose-built engines,

however, features like omnidirectional data and image capture, high density barcode scanning, and

blurry/damaged barcode decoding are all made available to Scandit’s user base. The company will continue to

improve upon its solution via over-the-air software updates and upgrades as it does today, especially as its

competitors release newer iterations of imager engines with enhanced functionalities. Rapidly improving camera

technology for consumer devices, with several OEMs even differentiating on this capability, will have a substantial

(positive) impact on Scandit’s solution. Scandit-powered apps are today supporting use cases with 100-500 scans

per device per day. Ergonomic challenges associated with the Scandit solution that discourage users from using

these devices in scan-intensive applications (tens of scans per minute, by VDC’s definition) are hardware-related,

largely due to the placement of the camera on the smart device itself. The company can potentially circumvent

this issue with its newly introduced case (detailed below). Even as this requires user investment in additional

device-specific hardware (case), it will potentially result in improved ergonomics combined with the value

propositions that Scandit’s data capture platform brings to the table.

VDC’s primary research indicates that Scandit has been part of a few fairly large deployments in which traditional,

purpose-built data capture solutions have been replaced with mobile devices running applications developed

entirely by Scandit or those that leverage its Barcode Scanner SDK. In support of its enterprise ambitions with

non-rugged products, Scandit announced the launch of its patent-pending Scandit Case in December 2015. This

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case is designed for iPhone 6/6s and works with all of its mobile scanning solutions using the devices’ built-in

camera. The company aims to successfully position its product for use in scan-intensive application environments

across the entire supply chain with the point-to-scan functionality such as with traditional scanning devices. This is

currently only for those users who choose to use this particular iteration of the iPhone, with expanded smartphone

support planned for 2016.

Scandit has already developed an impressive list of clients that includes retailers like Ahold, Coop, Tesco

Homeplus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as others such as Capital One, Cardinal Health, Genentech, Nike,

SBB, Shell, SITA, and Verizon. Its solutions can be used for applications ranging from self-checkout, mshopping,

mPOS, order entry, and clienteling in retail; to asset management and track and trace in transportation and

logistics; to patient care in health care.

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Connecting with Scandit’s Customer Base

VDC interviewed several end-user organizations with existing investments in Scandit’s technology (since 2005),

including its Barcode Scanner SDK and Enterprise Solutions that use the platform to enable enterprise-grade

barcode scanning using their end-to-end mobile applications. These conversations highlighted the various

different types of market development opportunities available to Scandit, be it the use of consumer devices for

barcode scanning by a contractor-based workforce mobilizing their workflows, or consumers using their personal

devices to support self-shopping applications, or even large, distributed organizations enabling order entry and

traceability via Scandit-powered apps.

Exhibit 3: Scandit’s business development opportunities

US-based end users like Interline Brands and Imperial Supplies primarily use the SDK as part of their mobile apps

made available to a range of users—from small businesses to large third-party logistics providers (3PLs)—that

now give the mobile workforce access to a high quality, high performance, and fully automated order entry

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application, in the process eliminating errors and redundancies, and enhancing overall efficiencies. Scandit’s

European customers like SBB (Swiss Railways) and COOP also use the Scandit platform and enterprise app

solutions in varying capacities for applications like track-and-trace, damaged goods documentation, inventory

management and control, and customer self-scanning. For the applications under consideration, Scandit’s

Barcode Scanner SDK is designed to enable high speed, omnidirectional scanning, which significantly shortens

time required to execute applications while also performing up to specification in less-than-ideal conditions such

as in low ambient light environments. Scandit’s overall app solution and cloud platform offers tremendous room

for growth from an analytics, device management, and application development standpoint, even as many

customers today use its Barcode Scanner SDK.

Scandit’s Partners—Opening up Opportunities

Enterprises can avail of Scandit’s end-to-end solutions and the Barcode Scanner SDK in two ways: on a regular

consumer device or on a rugged smartphone with built-in camera, both of which lack an integrated imager or

scanner. Scandit’s recent partnership with rugged enterprise/business device manufacturer, Kyocera, has brought

its enterprise-grade scanning capabilities to Kyocera’s line of ruggedized Android smartphones. Through

optimization and testing the built-in cameras, the Scandit SDK will facilitate enterprise-grade barcode scanning,

without needing a separate OEM engine component or even scanning sled/sleeve via Kyocera’s DuraForce,

DuraForce XD, Brigadier, Torque, and TorqueXT, designed for use in harsh environments by customers that need

fully rugged data capture solutions. VDC believes that by optimizing Kyocera’s renowned rugged mobile devices

and combining them with the multitude of applications through Scandit’s developer network, these solutions can

become alternatives in the markets where mobile computers are deployed. This partnership, along with others like

it, will open Scandit to new solution development opportunities in several new application environments.

Scandit has also partnered with German systems integrator and mobile app solution developer, grandcentrix, on

the application for one of Switzerland’s leading retailers. The company is part of Scandit’s Global Partner Network

of solution providers and hardware manufacturers specializing in addressing end users’ vertical-specific

application requirements. With this mobile app, grandcentrix provides consumers information on this retailer’s new

products, promotions, and personalized product recommendations, while also giving them access to the retail

assortment, all through their Android or iOS-based mobile device. The retailer was looking to launch an app that

would facilitate a high level of customer interaction, enabling barcode scanning to complete such tasks as looking

up products, adding items to shopping lists, integrating customer loyalty cards, and scanning gift cards for mobile

payment. grandcentrix selected Scandit as its in-app barcode scanner partner due to its ability to scan a broad

range of barcodes, overall scan performance, ease-of-use, ongoing support for major mobile OS platforms,

scalability potential, reliability, and availability of periodic updates and functionality expansion. As grandcentrix

expands its relationship with this retailer, Scandit is well-positioned to improve its enterprise barcode scanning

workflows into the future.

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VDC’s View—What Lies Ahead for Scandit Scandit’s focus on a broad range of application environments is a competitive differentiator in the mobile scanning

ecosystem. While most of its initial success has come from enterprises and solution providers leveraging its easy-

to-integrate, high performance Barcode Scanner SDK for devices based on Android, iOS, and Windows, VDC

anticipates rising interest from end users in its configurable and highly customizable, vertical- and application-

specific solutions. As businesses ramp up their mobile device investments, they are evaluating and considering

solution providers that can offer flexible, pre-built workflows that are universally useful and can be deployed for a

variety of different kinds of applications and use cases.

From VDC’s perspective, Scandit’s greatest strength is its platform-agnostic approach to workflow template

creation and solution development. Its ability to leverage the built-in camera in any device (consumer-grade or

rugged) and turn it into a relevant enterprise-ready barcode scanning solution will make it attractive to end users

and application developers alike. Given the proliferation of consumer devices for business use, Scandit sees its

most significant business development opportunities opening up in addressing the needs of the 1 billion-plus

mobile workforce in field sales/service, logistics, and retail. As Scandit continues to innovate in order to enable

seamless integration with existing ERP/WMS systems and e-commerce portals, it has the distinct opportunity to

capture share and establish a strong foothold in the evolving mobile scanning market by creating lightweight

applications around inventory management, purchasing, and product information lookup, for instance. Even as

Scandit now focuses on creating awareness for its solution development capabilities (data capture, in particular)

among end-user organizations, VDC believes it has the opportunity to take a closer look at information storage,

management, and retrieval in the long run, building on basic analytics, cloud services, and localization information

that it offers today. End users will greatly benefit from the ability to do more with the data collected through

disparate data capture solutions on a single platform.

Barcode scanning helps connect the physical with the digital. Solution vendors like Scandit are well-positioned to

capitalize on connected intelligence-related trends and advancements, mobilizing and further empowering today’s

workforce and everyday consumers, all at the same time.

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Scandit Customer Case Studies In the following sections, VDC outlines Scandit’s relationship with some of its key customers in Europe and the

United States.

SBB—Swiss Federal Railways

Company Facts

SBB is Switzerland’s national railway company transporting more than 360 million passengers every year. The

company employs more than 31,000 people and generates an operating income of more than CHF 8.5B. SBB

also has an internal mail department that transports letters, parcels, and small packages (no tickets).

Data Capture Solution Use

For its internal mail department, SBB chose to completely replace its 5-year old legacy data capture devices

(MC70/75 by the former Motorola Solutions) with Samsung S4 and S5 Mini Android devices after careful

consideration and evaluation as it came up on its refresh cycle in Spring 2015. The company was experiencing

issues with these legacy devices from a battery performance, stability, size, and software updates standpoint.

Lower upfront investment costs and reduced expenses on device use and training contributed to this rising

interest in alternate devices. When looking at options, the Android platform was a clear winner in terms of both

cost and overall device performance. Its 200 employees in this department use these consumer smart devices for

applications like asset tracking, email, news, damaged goods documentation, and conventional track-and-trace.

Scandit designed the end-to-end mobile application with highly defined workflows that are extremely well-aligned

with SBB’s operations. The company is very pleased with the performance on these devices—especially in terms

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“SBB has been pleasantly surprised and

highly satisfied with the overall scan performance of the Scandit solution.

Software updates are also now incredibly easy to make.” – Conradin

Lietha, Project Manager

of scan speed, ability to scan in low light conditions, and provision of over-the-air updates. Its employees have

also reported an uptick in overall operational efficiencies.

Relationship with Scandit

SBB chose Scandit as its mobile track-and-trace application solution

vendor for its internal mail division, which speaks to Scandit’s ability

to design a fully configurable and customizable end-to-end solution

with flexible, modular, and pre-built templates and workflows that best

fit with use case requirements. Beyond barcode data capture, SBB

also uses Scandit’s solution to generate scan-related statistics and

advanced scan information (like scan location). The company’s internal

mail division expects its software-based expenditures to drop by 40% with projected TCO savings estimated to be

close to 75%.

What Lies Ahead for SBB

Based on its experience with the use of consumer devices in this department, SBB is now actively considering

smartphones and tablets for other LOB applications. This opens up opportunity for Scandit from a mobile

application development and deployment perspective.

Coop Cooperative (Switzerland)

Company Facts

Coop is Switzerland’s second largest retailer, structured in the form of a cooperative society with around 2.5

million members. The company employs more than 75,000 people (50,000 in the retail business alone) and

generated net sales of CHF 27.2B. Coop was one of the first self-checkout providers in Switzerland, introducing

its own system called Passabene in 2005, which is in use in several of its stores today.

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Coop Passabene – Coop uses Datalogic’s Joya and Zebra’s MC17/18 personal shopping systems (PSS) in about

125 stores. These continue to be its standard Passabene in-store mobile self-shopping/scanning solution for

customers. Its recently-launched smartphone-based application is used in addition to its purpose-built self-

scanning solution investments. Coop is particularly pleased with the performance on consumer devices given the

faster, more powerful CPU and updated OS platforms, which are much better than legacy Windows CE-based

devices. Coop chose Scandit for its Barcode Scanner SDK to enable enterprise-grade scanning using the built-in

camera on consumer devices. The company partnered with Re-Vision, one of the foremost authorities on in-store

customer self-scanning applications, to build the end-to-end solution while leveraging Scandit’s barcode scanning

expertise. Ten percent of Coop’s customers shop using in-store self-scanning devices; 3% of these use the

smartphone application, a number that Coop is working to grow. As of today, Coop has made this application

available only to customers at 125 store locations who own Android or iOS-based devices.

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“Scandit’s SDK offered the fastest barcode scanning speed and best performance of all

the options Coop tested. The company is also very good about posting updates and new

releases so Coop’s customers have access to the latest and greatest iteration of the Scandit barcode scan engine implemented in all Coop

apps.” – Manuel Wegmueller, Coop Self-Scanning Systems Manager

Coop@home – Coop has an online presence called coop@home with the website offering much of the same

selections found in stores and delivering groceries, wine, flowers, and other products to its customers in

Switzerland and Liechtenstein. More than 25% of coop@home customers shop using mobile devices. Its

coop@home mobile application for iOS and Android is powered by Scandit’s barcode scanner function, and has

gone from generating less than 5% of its e-commerce revenues in 2011 to more than 20% in 2014. Coop has

created a mobile application that enables its customers to quickly and accurately scan barcodes on any package

regardless of orientation and ambient lighting conditions. Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK allowed Coop to make

their app’s barcode scanning functionality easy to use for all users. The app empowers consumers to use their

mobile devices to place orders, scan barcodes as required to retrieve product information and place in the virtual

shopping cart, and purchase products instantly, with an option for pick-up at drive-through stations or home

delivery.


Coop’s relationship with Scandit today is tied to the Barcode

Scanner SDK with further discussions around its evolving

enterprise mobile solutions. The company is thrilled with the

omnidirectional scanning capability and overall performance

(high speed, low ambient light), along with Scandit’s

responsiveness and its update publication and distribution

schedule.

What Lies Ahead for Coop

Wi-Fi connectivity-related issues have prevented it from exclusively launching mobile application-based self-

scanning (and no PSS) in its stores, an issue it hopes to resolve in the coming months. This will help it proactively

evaluate usability and consumer preference for smartphone-based, self-scanning applications independent of

PSS. While its employees use purpose-built data capture solutions today, the company is considering consumer

devices for business applications.

Interline Brands, Inc.

Company Facts

Interline Brands is headquartered in Florida and is one of the largest wholesale distributors and direct marketers

of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products for non-industrial businesses in the United States. The

company employs over 4,300 people and generated $1.4B in revenues. The Home Depot acquired Interline

Brands for $1.6B in July 2015.

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“Interline Brands is very

impressed with the Scandit SDK’s ease of use,

integration with other applications, simplicity, uptime, and speed.” –

Marketing Representative


Interline Brands’ primary target customers are professional contractors, hardware retailers, facilities maintenance

operators, and small mom-and-pop establishments including locksmiths, plumbers, and electricians. The

company launched LOB specific applications in summer 2015 (developed in-house with help from a third-party

app developer) so its customers can more efficiently place orders for equipment and tools during the day and get

items delivered the next day, as opposed to having to do it in front of a computer at night or even by calling it in

for a two-day delivery timeframe. With this mobile app, Interline Brands’ customers can scan products like circuit

boxes and place orders. The barcode scanning capability on these applications is powered by Scandit. What

Interline Brands appreciates most about this solution to the order entry and fulfillment conundrum is the ease with

which all its customers, including small businesses, are able to place orders, save time, and shorten the

procurement gap.


Interline Brands uses Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK to help its customers

streamline overall processes and generate operational efficiencies. The

company aims to build more awareness about the order entry applications

and encourage use amongst its 175,000-plus customers. Interline Brands will

wait for adoption rates to go up and evaluate the applications on ease of use,

simplicity, uptime, and speed before it considers cloud services and analytics.

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What Lies Ahead for Interline Brands

While Interline Brands today uses Scandit only for barcode identification, it sees more sophisticated use cases

like image recognition as being viable in the future.

Imperial Supplies, LLC

Company Facts

Imperial Supplies is a US-based distributor of maintenance products that services customers through a

nationwide network of regional distribution centers. The company employs about 500 people and has 26,000

products as part of its portfolio. It has a large customer base—a healthy mix of large enterprises such as FedEx,

Schneider, UPS, and U-Haul, and also lots of smaller mom-and-pop establishments.


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“Imperial Supplies opted to go for Scandit

based on its SDK’s superior barcode scanning performance relative to other

options in the market and has since seen tremendous application adoption from existing customers.” – Nicole AlBoushi,

eCommerce Manager

Imperial Supplies is a telesales organization with dedicated account advisors for each account that offer help with

the ordering process and also provide value-added services. It was the first national parts distributor to use

barcode technology to automate order entry back in 1984. Although customers place orders on the phone, the

company also wanted to give them the option of placing orders in real-time, on the go. This led its internal team to

design and develop a mobile order entry application powered by Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK for iOS and

Android-based consumer devices. The company was particularly impressed by its data capture speed and low

light performance. Imperial Supplies has already seen a dramatic increase in sales and tremendous adoption

from existing customers (more than 4,000 downloaders and active users) in a relatively short period of time who

are moving from traditional scanners to the more user friendly mobile solution. The company has received a lot of

positive feedback from its customers on their enhanced ability to place orders on time, scan directly from the

catalog without any issues (where barcodes are placed very close to each other), and overall speed of scanning.


Imperial Supplies uses Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK to help

its customers save time in the ordering process and better

manage stock inventory levels. The application’s scanning

functionality complements others like product search browsing

and quick order. The company aims to create more awareness

about this application and its capabilities among its customer

base in the coming months.

What Lies Ahead for Imperial Supplies

Imperial Supplies would consider investing in analytics tools and services to assess scanning-related trends once

adoption and usage scale.

Cardinal Health

Company Facts

Cardinal Health is a leading health care services company headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. The company employs

36,000 people worldwide and generated $102.5B in revenues in FY2015. It specializes in wholesale distribution of

pharmaceuticals and medical products, serving more than 100,000 locations including pharmacies, hospitals,

ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, and physician offices. Cardinal Health provides medical products

to more than 75% of hospitals in the US.

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“Cardinal Health is pleased with how much better, faster, and easier order entry has

become for its customers since the launch of the Scandit-powered Order Express

app. Glowing customer testimonials are a testament to overall process

improvement.” – Brendan Gardner, Product/Market Manager Mobile

Cardinal Health’s pharmacy distribution division caters to the needs of hospitals

and pharmacies, enabling online ordering via its Order Express portal for various

types of pharmacy products (including prescription and over-the-counter

medications). Cardinal used to provide its pharmacy customers with a device with

an embedded laser or LED scan engine to help facilitate and ease the pharmacy

product ordering process by decoding a wide range of barcodes. These devices

had scan accuracy rates of around 70%, which prompted the company to look at

alternatives that would in turn help lower costs and minimize errors for

customers. Cardinal tried leasing purpose-built scanner hardware to its

customers, but then decided to test a more cost-efficient option with consumer

device apps. It tested native scanning functionality on consumer devices and

found those to be severely lacking in speed and overall scan performance. It then

tested Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK along with some others and found

Scandit’s solution to be best-suited for its requirements in terms of accuracy, speed, and ease of use. The

company launched its Order Express app (on iOS and Android devices) built by a third-party vendor but now

managed by Cardinal’s internal IT team in summer 2015 and now has 2,300 downloads with about 1,500 active

users. The company encourages its customers to use their own smart devices to download this free app and ease

the overall order entry process, with scan accuracy now standing at more than 95%. This app works offline and

has the ability to be completely disconnected. Cardinal’s intention is to have its customers use it as a building tool

(adding products to shopping cart) and then using the desktop website to place the final order. While the company

is experiencing challenges in getting its large customer base to consider using their own devices for the order

entry process, it has received extremely positive feedback and glowing testimonials from those who have.


Cardinal Health has seen cost savings from its move to a

Scandit-powered app when compared to its investments in

purpose-built barcode scanners. The company is pleased with

the app’s scan performance and its ability to decode a wide

range of barcode symbologies—everything from linear to 2D.

Cardinal is especially happy with Scandit’s responsiveness to

feedback and new feature requirements and updates to

continually improve overall performance.

What Lies Ahead for Cardinal Health

Cardinal Health will continue to recommend its customers to switch to the mobile Order Express app. The

company sees its relationship with Scandit expanding with new software versions, features, and updates coming

up.


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Appendix The following section offers performance metrics for Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK as compared to

Honeywell’s NG8680 imaging engine based on the company’s internal qualification and measurement standards.

Technical Background on the Scandit Approach

Scandit’s approach to barcode scanning computes sharp barcodes from blurred barcodes, high resolution

barcodes from low resolution barcodes, and high contrast barcodes from low contrast barcodes. The result is

a barcode decoder engine that decodes barcodes at lower resolution and lower contrast than conventional

imager solutions. Decode range for a given camera chip resolution is maximized, even high-density barcodes

(3-4 mil x-dimension) are decoded reliably with smartphone cameras and the performance in low-light

conditions is outstanding even without the custom LED illumination of traditional barcode imagers. Scandit’s

blurry barcode decoder also makes operation independent of the autofocus, eliminating a frequent source of

scanning delays with other smartphone-based consumer-grade scanning solutions and optimizing the use of

the multi-core ARM CPUs in these devices at a high frame rate.

Key Performance Indicator

Scandit (on iPhone 6S)*

Honeywell NG8680 High Megapixel Imaging

Engine (DR Version)**

Minimum Pixel per Narrow Element (1D codes)

As low as 0.6 (symbology dependent) 1.6***

Symbol Contrast 14% 20%

Image Resolution 720 × 1280 (Full HD optional) 2592 × 1944

Max Range UPC-A (100%) 525 mm 499 mm

Minimum X-Dimension (1D codes) 3.5 mil (at 720 × 1280) >2.5 mil (for WA version)

(unknown for DR version)

Typical Frame Rate 30 (up to 120) frames per second

6 (up to 14) frames per second

Pitch Scan Angle (1D codes) 80 degrees 45 degrees

Skew (Yaw) Scan Angle (1D codes) 50 degrees 65 degrees

*Provided by Scandit, based on Scandit’s measurements.

**https://www.honeywellaidc.com/CatalogDocuments/n8600-miniature-area-imaging-engine-data-sheet-en.pdf

***https://www.honeywellaidc.com/CatalogDocuments/SwiftDecoder_DS_RevA_0411_EN.pdf

(Sourced from Scandit)

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VDC Research About the Author

Richa Gupta is responsible for VDC’s strategic research on the

global markets for data capture technologies, including barcode

scanners and printers, and machine vision solutions. Data capture

hardware vendors and solution providers rely on her expertise in the

AIDC market for key market development initiatives. Her highly

actionable data and insights help them formulate their long-term

business strategies. She undertakes market opportunity sizing and

forecasting, competitive landscape analysis, and strategic marketing assistance, while also providing valuable

thought leadership for this technology market segment. Richa holds a degree in Computer Engineering and an

MBA from India.

David Krebs has more than 10 years of experience covering the markets for enterprise and government mobility

solutions, wireless data communication technologies, and automatic data-capture research and consulting. David

focuses on identifying the key drivers and enablers in the adoption of mobile and wireless solutions among mobile

workers in the extended enterprise. David’s consulting and strategic advisory experience is far reaching and

includes technology and market opportunity assessments, technology penetration and adoption enablers, partner

profiling and development, new product development, and M&A due diligence support. David has extensive

primary market research management and execution experience to support market sizing and forecasting, total

cost of ownership (TCO), comparative product performance evaluation, competitive benchmarking, and end-user

requirements analysis. David is a graduate of Boston University (BSBA).

About VDC Research

Founded in 1971, VDC Research provides in-depth insights to technology vendors, end users, and investors

across the globe. As a market research and consulting firm, VDC’s coverage of AutoID, enterprise mobility,

industrial automation, and IoT and embedded technologies is among the most advanced in the industry, helping

our clients make critical decisions with confidence. Offering syndicated reports and custom consultations, our

methodologies consistently provide accurate forecasts and unmatched thought leadership for deeply technical

markets. Located in Natick, Massachusetts, VDC prides itself on its close personal relationships with clients,

delivering an attention to detail and a unique perspective that is second to none.

For more information, contact us at [email protected].

Contact Richa:

[email protected]