Jul
29
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Data collection solution in an industrial environment requires industrial computers. Information is most accurate when collected at the point of origin. So when information is gathered on a manufacturing floor, out in the field or in any other harsh environment, its data collection system must contain industrial touch PC, scanners, barcodes, tag reader that are rated for that environment. An industrial touchscreen PC eliminates the need for a volatile keyboard and the screen accommodates “fat” fingers with gloves. Sealed casing provides internal components protection from heat, dust and water.
Many solution providers evaluate the environmental conditions for the data collection solution and provide the “best of breed” components to the the requirements. VARs such as Efficient Business Systems and ValuTrack offer many industrial rated components within their recommended solutions including the Percon industrial touch PC products.
Mobile Datata Computer and Bar coding
Jul
23
Forklifts do the heavy lifting. Forklift mounted computers track the material and operations performed by the forklift operator including those uncontrolled accidents. A rugged computer mounted on a forklift can receive or record information from many sources.
- Shock detector to record collisions
- RFID readers to capture item ID or/and current locations
- Bar codes and scanners to track material and inventory
- Touchscreen and industrial keyboards for manual data entries and inquiries
- GPS to confirm location and destinations especially in large yards.
All these technologies enable the forklift mounted computer and its operator to do the heavy “data”lifting in any large load operation. Follow the link for more detailed description of our Phoenix forklift computer
photo credit: Metro Centric operating in a warehouse.
Jul
22
Imagine a police car or a firetruck without a vehicle mounted computer! How effective would a policeman or a fireman be without the information required for they day to day operation? Inquiries about a license tag, location of an incident, and filing various on the road all require a mobile data terminal terminal within their transportation vehicle (police car, ambulance or firetruck).
Public safety sector is exposed to various environments such as continuous pounding and shocks from the road and off-road, weather conditions such as extreme heat, bitter cold and pounding rain and also the chemical pollutants from incident scenes. These conditions require that the vehicle mounted computer be industrial rated. The Percon rugged industrial computer meets all the specifications of the public service mobile data collection sector.
Follow the link for more details on bar coded and RFID fire department applications.
Jul
22
RFID data collection in expansive storage areas mandates mobility and industrial mobile data terminals with RFID readers. Imagine the acreages of stored containers in a shipyard. How does the shipyard manager maintain accountability of all receipts 
and shipments? Barcodes are sometimes used but are fairly ineffective in reading at such long distance and require large labels for accuracy. Size of container and distance makes scanning very challenging and somewhat difficult. The ideal solution is using RFID long range tags to identify the container with its unique identification number (license tag). The shipper can also use this ID number to their ASN. This ties all the goods and its quantities within the container to receipts of all goods that can be accounted with just one read of the RFID tag.
This RFID data collection can be performed at a time when a mobile vehicle, such as a crane, unloads containers, reads information with an industrial mobile computer and places the containers on trucks or temporary locations. This process records container ID and location for total shipyard inventory control.
This RFID application is provided by select Solution Partners from Percon.
May
28
Rugged industrial computers are designed to provide data collection in all kinds of weather and environments. When you think of the outdoor seasons and its weather, you’d come up with rain, snow, sleet, heat and bitter cold. Fixed or vehicle computers are required to take all that punishment. let’s look into each one;
- Rain, snow and sleet: The casing is sealed at various level of protection depending on its IP rating. That would include the display, keyboard and ports.
- Temperatures: Operating in the cold winters of Alaska, or a local freezer to the tropic outdoors of Puerto Rico, industrial computers can hold up to temperatures of -30 to +60 degrees centigrade.
- Thunder, hail, wind and other natural or man made noises can interfere in the operation of an industrial computer. To compensate, ruggedized computer manufactures install high volume speakers.
- Sunlight is good for the garden but very difficult for outdoor PC operations. Fortunately, industrial hardware have display with anti-glare to enhance visibility.
Whatever the weather, rugged industrial computers meet the challenges of their environment.
photo credit: mehul.antani
May
27
Wireless Vehicle Computer in Warehouse
A summary on using a wireless vehicle computer with barcoding. Data collection is performed in many environments. Some of these environments require that information be collected while in a mobile location such as car, forklift, truck or just a cart. Of course some or most of these locations are not so PC friendly and would require a rugged industrial computer. Since the data is collected in a mobile fashion, the ruggedized PC needs to be connected to a network for real time data collection. A wireless vehicle computer can have multiple real-time connections such as cellular (GSM and GPS) and WiFi.
WiFi connection enables the rugged mobile PC to act as a workstation on wheels. A prime example would be using the wireless vehicle computer in a warehouse operation. The interactive information exchange can be used for many WMS software functions:
- Receiving
- Putwaway
- Cross-docking
- Inventory maintenance
- Picking
- Shipping
- Inventory Count
As each functions is used, an operator can update the host main inventory data base with the latest product movements. With inventory being continually up-to-date, web purchasing can reflect the most current available products for sale.
May
26
No matter how you spell it, using bar code to collect information is one of the fastest and most accurate technology we can use. A barcode represents information that is static and usually derived from a data base. A good example would be the UPC label you see on all your products at a grocery store. The manufacturer has the product code in a data base. That information is printed on a label using a unique symbology (language that interprets spaces between the black and white lines). This in effects records the product code. When using a scanner, light is emitted unto the label and the decoding symbology provides an electronic translation into the collection device. This device can be an mobile data terminal held by a person or a vehicle computer mounted in a car or forklift.
In summary, barcoding is a solid and established means of data collection. It makes our lives much easier by providing the right information instantly and accurately.
May
26
Wireless data collection is performed using various enabling technologies. The components would consist of:
- a capturing and storing device such as a mobile data terminal, or vehicle computer(VMT), or a handheld computer such as a portable data terminal (PDT)
- Data scanning ability such as a barcode scanner
- Optionally, a RFID reader that would collect from RFID tags
- A means to move collected data from the mobile data terminal to the database. This can be as simple as a USB wired download, or a WiFi connection to the rugged industrial computer and a GSM connection to move data through a cellular network.
Wireless connectivity can also be interactive via an application that would add, update and interpret information from the mobile computer hardware. These real time mobile computer solutions would include warehouse management, material locator, item tracking, and many more. The true benefit of wireless data collection is the real time results being collected with the information at the point of origin. This makes the data most accurate and ultimately provides any user and their community with excellent services.
photo credit: myuibe
May
25
Information is all around us. It is in the form of sight (pictures), sound (music), and hand written or printed (paper media). People absorb or interface with information through communications such as television, radio, telephone, books (published media), and now more commonly through the internet. The process of taking information from its pure form into electronic format is called data collection.
Over the years, many technologies have been invented for the capture, processing and dissemination of information. Our most dominant tool today is the Internet. But how did all that data get into a data base, how and where was it collected, what are the computations and formatting performed ? In these series of posts, I will address the various technologies used to capture information in a fixed and mobile environments. My discussions on data collection will focus on industries such manufacturing, health care, oil exploration, transportation, mobile services, logistics and supply chain.
Topics of discussion will be:
- Barcode, barcoding, or bar code (many ways of saying the same thing)
- RFID (radio frequency identification) and RFID applications
- Wireless mobile computing
- Portable data collection (batch mode)
- Shop floor data collection
- Various industrial devices for data capture such as mobile data terminals, forklift computers, small industrial PCs, and vehicle computers
Read more about each data collection method and its associated industries in my posts.
photo credit: Unhindered by Talent
May
24
After the inaugural release of the Percon Phoenix104 (like rising from the ashes) mobile data terminal, we plan on subsequent release of two new industrial computers with 12.1” and 6.4” displays. Although it appears that screen sizes are just the changes, we are addressing our ability to manufacture according to requested configuration(s). The Percon goal is to “right-size” the VMT to the customers’ needs and to provide a rugged terminal with JUST the required features at the right price. …. “kind of like Dell”
Longer term plans include a portable rugged tablet… essentially a mobile data computer that is not limited to a vehicle mount. That will open opportunities in more industries.
Mobile Datata Computer and Bar coding
