Samuel Mueller, CEO & Co-Founder at Scandit.
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Let’s take a minute to reflect on our current data capture processes end-to-end. Companies across retail, logistics and other industries are realizing the benefits of deploying a smart data capture strategy. This is an integrated hardware, software and connectivity strategy that revolutionizes the interaction between tangible assets, physical operations, employees, customers and IT systems, ushering in a new era of modernization—enabling real-time, accurate decision-making and workflow automation at scale.
While traditional data capture technologies require companies to invest in purchasing and maintaining dedicated scanning devices, smart data capture enables capturing data from barcodes, text, IDs and objects by any device with a camera—from drones to wearables and smartphones. As data capture software continues to become smarter, companies will be able to combine the collected data with information from other sources to unlock new business intelligence, enabling employees to make better decisions and reduce errors.
Let’s evaluate three evolving trends driving the future of data capture.
1. Barcodes aren’t going anywhere, and companies are reaping the rewards of pairing them with other modals.
Barcodes are the predominant data capture identifier used today, and thanks to initiatives like GS1 Sunrise 2027, we’re seeing them evolve with higher-level capabilities to offer new insights.
However, there is no silver bullet to data capture, and as technology advances, other modalities such as text and object recognition are becoming more prevalent to be used in conjunction with barcodes to provide more seamless access to information and faster, richer insights to workers and consumers.
In addition to enabling data capture solutions in environments that may not contain barcodes, this allows for higher identification success rates.
Multimodal capabilities can drive actions and improve processes across the board. For grocery retailers, maintaining an accurate view of what is on their shelves is a time-consuming, inefficient task, yet poor visibility can impact sales and profitability. In this context, the ability to read multiple identifiers such as shelf labels and product facings together can help create a digital representation of the shelf in real time at a glance to drive decision-making—and removes the need to scan individual items, thereby increasing efficiency.
This approach provides instant and richer insights for the grocer into low or no stock, product placement or incorrect promotions. It also removes the need for a "perfect" environment where all barcodes are facing the user, or autonomous robots if desired, to remove the tedious task from humans. All the data collected can then be fed back into the grocer’s ERP and other systems to trigger actions such as product replenishment.
2. New smart devices mean new benefits.
Capturing or accessing data about physical assets in the real world is a very in-the-moment, focused activity. Today, we rely on smartphones or single-purpose devices for many tasks—from general communication and workers scanning packages at the receiving dock and on shelves, to customers ordering and paying for products in-store.
These processes are only improving with the development and adoption of new smart devices or smart data capture solutions that can collect a greater volume of data autonomously and intelligently. Enterprises can increasingly also leverage existing infrastructure such as CCTV, shelf cameras or floor scrubbers as smart data capture sensors to move repetitive tasks away from humans. Relying on front-line workers for tedious tasks such as stock counting can lead to human error, inefficiency and decreased employee satisfaction.
However, when evaluating new smart devices, enterprises should consider the specific workflows, UX and environments they will be used in to ensure they add value or ease the lives of workers to ensure a strong adoption rate. Success is about finding the sweet spot where humans and technology collaborate well, empowers workers to spend their time on more engaging tasks and fuses data sources across device types for enhanced insights.
3. Digital interfaces will advance.
Of course, we still need displays and ways for users to see, interpret and interact with these insights. Therefore, smart devices play a dual role. One is to capture the real world, via cameras; the other is to offer a visual interface to provide information and upskill users.
In terms of current innovations, the new Apple Vision Pro is a great example of augmented reality’s significant and growing applications for the enterprise as well as for consumers. But there’s little point in having headsets that pass through visuals without offering users further context.
Coupled with smart data capture capabilities to identify, locate and interpret real-world assets, these devices will greatly improve how employees collect and access information about tangible assets in real time to support more timely and informed decision-making. For example, a field service worker can be instructed in real time which part needs maintenance, with guidance as they go.
Consideration should be given to how best such interfaces should be implemented—a mix of haptic and visual notifications might be best in a noisy warehouse environment, where a beep will be missed. As with any new technology, education and training for those who are using it will be needed, as well as gathering important feedback on how workers interact with such interfaces in the real world.
Bring on the innovation.
Analogous to how smart data capture can help create and maintain a digital representation of a physical shelf, companies across industries—from retail to healthcare—will be operating with a digital counterpart in their systems that represents what’s really happening across their physical operations at any point.
Another core enabling technology in this context is dimensioning, which helps workers readily capture the size and shape of physical objects to plan and best use physical space, reducing waste and cutting down on "shipping air," or unused space in the supply chain.
When looking to pursue any digital transformation, it’s easy to get caught up in technology that brings incremental advances, but that doesn’t change the underlying problems in current processes or lead to more efficient and enjoyable user experiences overall for front-line workers and consumers—from the warehouse to the store. A multimodal smart data capture strategy can make this possible where the future is near (and very bright).
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