Accu-Sort Systems Inc. manufactures fixed-position laser and camera bar code scanners.

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Accu-Sort Systems Inc. is a leading manufacturer of fixed-position laser and camera bar code scanners. When Fortune 500 company Danaher Corp. bought the company in 2003, its R&D funding doubled, and its equipment now scans about 80 percent of all parcels shipped in the United States.

“At the time of the acquisition, we had an aging product portfolio,” President Gregg Branning explains. Branning, an employee at a different Danaher business, joined with the acquisition and became president in 2005. “Since the acquisition, we’ve launched six new products,” he says. Those products include the AV6010 long-range camera system, which was launched in October 2007.

This has been Accu-Sort’s most successful launch in the company’s history.

“Within 30 days of the launch, we had booked orders for roughly 500 cameras,” Branning says. “It has been extremely well-received in the market due to the quality, reliability and ease of use [of the camera].”

Branning calls the camera a breakthrough and “by far, the best in the industry.”

It is primarily used for high-speed sorting in warehouse and distribution centers. He says the barcode-decoding device is more reliable and performs better than comparable products, with a mean time between failure (MTBF) of greater than 75,000 hours. The leading competitors’ cameras have a MTBF of 50,000, says Vice President of Marketing Adnan Ahmed.

To Market
Branning says Danaher’s resources helped get the product to market, although Accu-Sort’s innovative practices deserve credit. “We would have been able to develop it anyway, but it would have taken us longer had we not been able to increase our funding,” he says.

The company stays innovative by listening to the “voice of the consumer” (VOC) and finding ways to make products more efficient, he adds.

“The real answer is listening to what customers’ issues are,” Branning says. “We’ll spend time at their site[s], seeing what problems they’re having and listening to what they want done as well as just watching.

"Where we see inefficiencies, we take that VOC, we use it in developing our strategies and product lines and, more importantly, we make sure we’re giving them a solution, not just selling them a product.”

In the case of the AV6010, the VOC was still being sought when Accu-Sort was a mere two months away from launching the camera. “A major customer suggested changing connections inside the unit, in the event of field repairs,” Branning recalls. “We took that information and we quickly made that change, to the delight of the customer.”  

When Accu-Sort visited a customer that was unloading cartons from a truck, typing in the cartons’ barcode information and printing out new barcode labels for the customer retailer, the VOC was loud and clear: The inefficient process required about 24 hours and six to 10 people.

Accu-Sort designed a solution that reduced the process to less than three hours, with two people. 

“By understanding their pain points, they now have an extendable conveyor that goes into the truck,” Branning says. “After the carton moves down the conveyor, our scanner reads the existing barcode.

“Our software then converts it [to the retailer’s barcode] and the print-and-apply machines will automatically print and apply [the new barcodes]. After that, we have another laser scanner that verifies if it did get the correct bar code on the box.”

Branning stresses that Accu-Sort’s approach to the “messy truck” problem was unique because they were “looking for a solution and applying that solution instead of selling them a bar scanner.”

Extended Service
The customer service doesn’t end there. Accu-Sort is happy to consult with any customer who needs its help – even if the customer is not its own. “We have one of the best service and support networks here in the U.S.,” Ahmed says. “We try to help customers with competitors’ products.

“In many cases [they eventually move] their business to us,” he adds.

Accu-Sort manufactures out of two facilities in Telford, and it redesigns its production cells as often as every six months due to its lean principles. The facilities carry no finished goods, as all operations work on demand-flow. It has global sales and service locations, and is now focusing on investing in Europe and Asia.