Category Archives: Vehicle Mount Computer

Parent group for Percon’s line of industrial computers

Jan 21 1 comments
Press Release, Vehicle Mount Computer, forklift computer, mobile data terminal

IntelliTrack & Percon Partner for Vehicle Mount Computer and WMS Solution

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Jan. 20, 20011 Eugene, Oregon, Hunt Valley, Maryland. Percon, Inc. and IntelliTrack, Inc. announce their partnership to provide a complete warehouse management and inventory control solution for small to mid-sized companies.  Integrating the IP67 rated Percon vehicle mount computer with IntelliTrack’s WMS software provides industrial manufacturers, cold storage operations and distribution centers with a cost effective logistic tool.

One of IntelliTrack’s most successful and a widely used product is a warehouse management system. IntelliTrack software is affordable, and easy to install. The WMS is feature rich with an intuitive user interface. WMS comes in three cost effective versions that maximize efficiency and optimize labor productivity in warehouses of all sizes. Each version provides the basic functions for warehouse operations, including, receiving, physical inventory, picking and shipping as well as management features including queries, reporting and barcode labeling.

“The IntelliTrack WMS product is ideally suited for industrial manufacturing operations.  Our software provides all the material handling and management functions for a diverse set of Industrial Warehouse environments from manufacturing to distribution.  With its IP67 rating, the Percon Phoenix is the perfect hardware complement for the IntelliTrack WMS software in a rugged environment.” said Ron Pawlowski, COO of IntelliTrack.

Percon designs and manufactures industrial vehicle mount computer products. The Phoenix 104E is a Windows CE 6.0 forklift computer that provides high performance power in a compact and ergonomic form with maximum flexibility and durability in a range of extreme environments. In the warehouse, the yard, the freezer, or on the road, the Phoenix 104E provides the computing power and the communication functions to meet the requirements of today’s demanding applications.

“The rugged engineering of our mobile data terminals is a perfect complement for IntelliTrack WMS and ISRP inventory software. The Phoenix 104e offers a solution that saves time and operates effectively in the harshest environment and severe weather.” said Rob Hougen, President and Engineering Director of Percon.  “We look forward to a renewed partnership with IntelliTrack.” added Mr. Hougen.

About Percon, Inc.

Percon, Inc. engineers, manufactures, sells and distributes industrial forklift computer products that comprise of fixed and vehicle computers for operations suited for the harshest of environments. Application areas would include vertical industries such as warehousing, cold storage, transportation, military and public safety. Our technology includes our Phoenix flagship products; a one piece rugged IP 65 rated industrial vehicle mount computers.  For more information on Percon forklift computers, please visit www.percon.com

About IntelliTrack, Inc.
IntelliTrack, Inc. is the leading developer of affordable software applications for bar code, RFID, batch and WiFi (RF) data collection. Specializing in Inventory and Asset Management IntelliTrack applications include inventory control, warehouse management, and asset tracking. IntelliTrack software runs on mobile computers from Motorola, Datalogic and Unitech. More than 20,000 copies of IntelliTrack software have been deployed on over 50,000 mobile computers and wireless terminals worldwide. For further information, visit www.intellitrack.net.

Dec 30 0 comments
Technology, Vehicle Mount Computer

Percon Teams Up for RFID and Vehicle Mount Computer Solution

Eugene, OR and Tarpon Springs, FL (December 15, 2010) – Silent Partner Technologies and Percon, Inc. have combined their respective products to deliver a forklift computer RFID solution. By integrating SPT RTLS, RFID technology and the Percon vehicle computer products into an effective forklift locator system, a warehouse manager can now instantly locate his specific forklift in any area of his expansive operation.

“Our real time locator system (RTLS) for forklifts has been proven to be very effective”, said Ted Kostis, president of Silent Partner Technologies. “With just a few additional accessories, you can combine actuators to provide a forklift safety warning system too.” SPT has engineered their RFID RTLS for small to very large distribution areas with the objective of being effective and very affordable.

” Installation is so quick and easy that customers wonder why they have not installed it sooner.  Most installations are stand-alone and require no IT involvement.  The system can also bypass Wi-Fi systems and not rob bandwidth from current applications”  – Ted Kostis, Silent Partner Technologies

“Finding the specific forklift in a large manufacturing floor or a distribution center is very difficult and time consuming.  By adding an RFID tag within our forklift computer and assigning it to the SPT RTLS gives a warehouse or distribution manager a very beneficial tool”, said James Budniakiewicz, Senior Partner with Percon.

About Percon, Inc.

Percon is a recognized innovator in the AIDC/barcoding/RFID industries. Percon, Inc. engineers, manufactures, sells and distributes industrial fixed, vehicle and vehicle mount computer products for operations suited for the harshest of environments. Application areas would include vertical industries such as warehousing, oil exploration, manufacturing, cold storage, transportation, military and public safety. Percon products are the results of over 90 years of AIDC experience plus they are complemented with the quality support service expected from the Percon legacy.

For more information on the Percon forklift computer products, please visit www.percon.com

About Silent Partner Technologies

Silent Partner Technologies, based in Tarpon Springs, Fla., is a software developer and systems integrator of leading edge RFID applications and solutions. Our RFID products enable our customers to collect, track and manage data for various valuable assets in a variety of environments and in real time. For more information, visit www.silentpartnertech.com

Jul 23 0 comments
Vehicle Mount Computer, data collection, forklift computer

Forklift Mounted Computer Tracks the Heavy Loads

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

Victoria and Albert MuseumVictoria and Albert Museum

photo credit: Metro Centric operating in a warehouse.

Jul 22 1 comments
Vehicle Mount Computer, data collection, mobile data terminal

Vehicle Mounted Computer in Public Safety Sector (Police, EMS, Fire Dept)

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).

Vehicle Mounted Computer in FiretruckPublic 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 0 comments
RFID, Vehicle Mount Computer, data collection, mobile data terminal

RFID Data Collection with Industrial Mobile Data Terminal

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 RFID datacollection in shipyard with mobile data terminalsand 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 0 comments
Industrial and Rugged Computer News, Technology, Vehicle Mount Computer, data collection

Rugged Industrial Computers For All Seasons

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 vehicle mount 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.
Thunderstorms over Alexandria, VA
Creative Commons License photo credit: mehul.antani

May 27 2 comments
Industrial and Rugged Computer News, Technology, Vehicle Mount Computer, data collection

Wireless Vehicle Computer

Wireless Vehicle Computer in Warehouse

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 vehicle mount computer 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 0 comments
Industrial and Rugged Computer News, Technology, Vehicle Mount Computer, data collection

Wireless Data Collection

Wireless data collection is performed using various enabling technologies.  The components would consist of:

  1. a capturing and storing device such as a mobile data terminal, or vehicle mount computer(VMT), or a handheld computer such as a portable data terminal (PDT)
  2. Data scanning ability such as a barcode scanner
  3. Optionally, a RFID reader that would collect from RFID tags
  4. 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.

I♥UIBE
Creative Commons License photo credit: myuibe

May 24 0 comments
Industrial and Rugged Computer News, Phoenix 104, Technology, Vehicle Mount Computer

Just one Mobile Data Terminal product Now!

After the inaugural release of the Percon Phoenix104  (like rising from the ashes) mobile data terminals, 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 computer application.  That will open opportunities in more industries.

Percon Vehicle Computer

Mobile Datata Computer and Bar coding

May 24 0 comments
Industrial and Rugged Computer News, Phoenix 104, Vehicle Mount Computer

What’s a Forklift Computer Do?

Forklift computers are industrial computers designed and manufactured to withstand the constant shock and pounding of a rough terrain vehicle such as a forklift.  Operations of a forklift in a warehouse or material movement of a manufacturing plant require a vehicle computer device that can operate effectively and last years without continuous repairs.

It may seem inappropriate for a computer to reside and operate in industrial conditions but data capture for automation requires information for be collected at the point of its origin.  That would be applications such as receipt of goods, movement of goods to a locations, picking items for shipment or for manufacturing staging.  Each of these operations may require scanning of a barcode or reading an RFID tag to record movement of material to the company’s MRP or SCM systems.

Vintage Forklift truck
Creative Commons License photo credit: Matija Grguric