Digital Signage in Distribution Centers

For many large businesses, such as supermarket and chain store companies, over recent years there has been a growing trend for large hubs for stock storage and distribution. These provide many logistical advantages for such companies, reducing staff numbers and ensuring a higher level of efficiency when it comes to distributing stock to multiple regions and locations.

Good communication is imperative in these locations, which can often be quite big sites, expanding over several acres in some cases and housing hundreds of workers. Different methods of communication often have disadvantages that make them ineffective in such locations. Audible communications is often hampered by ambient noise, as is personal one-to-one communication such as hand-held radios.

LCD enclosures protect screens in distribution centers

Digital signage is an ideal platform for communicating in these locations, however, as a networked system of screens is highly visible and able to provide real time information across wide areas. Screens can also be hooked up to barcode scanners and other systems and used to monitor operations and handle stock control.

However, using digital signage in locations such as these is hampered slightly by some of the challenges these distribution hubs can offer.

Often, in distribution centers that store food. Chilled and freezer conditions mean that standard digital signage displays are not able to function. Equally, many of these food facilities are regularly hosed down, with the liberal use of water another reason why standard displays struggle in such locations. And even in non-food warehouses, often dust and other airborne particles can lead to a standard digital signage screen failing.

Digital signage in distribution centers requires the use of a protected system, with the screens protected for the conditions faced by operation is such locations. For freezer and chilled rooms, screens require a form of temperature control. Many distribution hubs employ LCD enclosures to maintain stable temperatures for screens in such locations, as internal heaters, fans and other climatic systems maintain a stable temperature within a screen’s operating range, regardless of how cold the ambient conditions get.

Furthermore, LCD enclosures provide a protective barrier against water, dust and other elements so often present in such locations, while the steel housing ensures the screens are adequately protected from any accidental impact, a common problem in such areas where forklift trucks and other manual handling systems are employed.

From deep freezers, chilled rooms, food distribution hubs, dusty warehouses and loading bays can all have digital signage displays installed to provide effective communication, which helps boost efficiency, benefit operations and keep everybody on site informed of important information.