Honeywell Acquires Movilizer, Leader in Simplifying Operations for Remote Connected Workers
Honeywell has completed its acquisition of privately held Movilizer, which created one of the world’s first cloud platforms for field service applications. Movilizer is used by remote workers performing service or maintenance, sales and distribution, and warehousing activities away from the office. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Movilizer’s cloud software enables a distributed workforce to create, deploy and manage workflow solutions – whether at the point of sale, in the field, in a warehouse or distribution center. Customers can seamlessly collect, transmit and analyze data generated by their workers on their existing information technology (IT) systems, enabling them to harness the power of their workforce from anywhere to best serve the needs of their end customers.
Microscan’s C-Mount QX Hawk Imager Wins 2012 Ringier Technology Innovation Award for Packaging Industry
Microscan announcd that its C-mount design QX Hawk barcode imager has won a 2012 Ringier Technology Innovation Award in the Packaging Industry category. Microscan’s Weijiang Song accepted the award during a ceremony in Shanghai. This event was coorganized by Ringier Trade Media and its magazine International Packaging News for China, together with ProPak China 2012. Following a strict selection process by an independent judge panel, with reference to online voting results, 21 winning companies were selected for their innovative products and technologies across 5 categories, including Package Converting, Packaging Application, Packaging Materials, Package Printing and Green Packaging. The overall aim of the award is to commend the contributions of companies promoting the development of packaging industry.
At the beginning of this year, Microscan introduced a new C-mount lens configuration for two of its products: the popular QX Hawk imager and the Vision HAWK smart camera. The QX Hawk imager is ideal for industrial track and trace applications, with powerful algorithms for reading virtually all linear and 2D barcodes. The rugged Vision HAWK smart camera combines the same decode capability with a complete vision toolset to enable a broad range of inspection and identification tasks. Both products can now be used with interchangeable lenses to address more application needs, such as high magnification and wide fields of view.
RFID: Track and Trace
Outsourcing continues to remain a dominant force throughout the pharmaceutical industry, as more companies than ever move to the “virtual world” of contract manufacturing. By incorporating outsourcing — a cost-effective, flexible approach to resource allocation and investment — into a company’s overall business strategy, pharmaceutical companies gain new opportunities to sustain long-term growth and competitive advantage. But the increasing globalization of the contract manufacturing market can lead to a rush to expand practices in low-cost countries, straining brand owners’ ability to manage and control their manufacturing, packaging and supply chain operations.
Despite outsourcing growth and the availability of Web-based tools, few manufacturing companies have successfully automated communications and operations to collaborate with suppliers, distributors and contract manufacturers. Instead, they still continue to rely on outdated processes that contribute to delays, errors and excessive inventory and costs.
To succeed with pharmaceutical outsourcing, a company must collaborate closely with partners. In order to succeed with collaboration, a company must have in place technologies and processes that improve control, visibility and velocity across the outsourced network — namely barcoding, radio-frequency identification (RFID) and track and trace capabilities.
