Special Report
AUTOMATIC DATA CAPTURE
instance, they decide to integrate RFID, payment, Voice or image capture technology at a later date. Total cost of ownership is a significant issue as, for many devices, there are hidden costs, i.e. batteries not being included and no extended warranty.” Ease of integration is another key talking point, in Hannay’s view. “The difficult economic climate has meant more companies opting to continue using existing legacy assets, so they are looking for solutions that enable easy integration,” he said.
Paul Westmoreland, managing director, Psion Teklogix UK.
Hagenbuch also thinks the mobile computing arena will increasingly benefit from more location-based solutions; field-based applications capable of directing a remote worker to the nearest source of spare parts, and in-premise Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) bringing major efficiencies to manufacturing and distribution operations by automatically locating assets within an operation. For Montanari’s part, he would like to see more reliable, smaller, lighter and higher capacity batteries. “We develop mobile technology and, therefore, batteries are the key to our success,” he said.
Paul Westmoreland, managing director at
Psion Teklogix UK, points out that the world of mobility remains diverse and challenging as customers look for a variety of solutions to meet their ever changing and, in some cases, very sophisticated needs. Psion has responded to this trend by launching its Open Source Mobility strategy promoted by its Ingenuity Working community site (
www.ingenuityworking.com). Returning to hardware, Wolfert observes some organisations asking for the latest versions of Microsoft operating systems to be implemented on mobile computers, even though it is not always required for applications they want to install. He added that Unitech offers the right balance between implementing the newest operating system and ensuring suitability for the required applications.
Future direction
In terms of future direction, Hagenbuch anticipates the market will see an effort by the manufactures to maximise the number of common parts or sub assemblies across a range of products. “A modular or common platform approach inevitably helps reduce build costs and manufacturing lead times; both key to the growing acceptance of rugged devices by systems integrators and end users keen to maximise the return of deploying mobile applications.”
Hurt’s view is that the market will see another step in terms of miniaturisation and technology integration; with power-efficient and faster communication using different radio networks around the globe. “As an example, enterprise applications supported via smartphones have expanded far beyond email and personal information management software (PIMS), so there has
now considering entering into the rugged device environment to reap the benefits of higher ROI and reduced total cost of owner- ship for their business customers. “In this context, the manufacturers will be encouraged to supply a number of advanced tools and utilities to partners in order to assist them in the development of their own software offerings,” he said.
James Hannay, senior VP, Zetes North Region.
Roeder believes some vendors will attempt to create a ‘competitive discontinuity’ in the market by introducing very price-competitive devices based on the latest operating systems now available in the consumer cell phone industry. Wolfert, on the other hand, reflects that besides the ‘operating system’ trend, which will drive new application features into the market, he sees a further specialisation in vertical-specific devices and offer the right balanced feature set for these applications. Hannay observes the adoption of RFID continues to grow, but mostly in apparel and the returnable assets sector. Zetes predicts a rapid rise in the use of alternatives such as image capture. Hannay also predicts that as the adoption of track & trace systems continues to rise, companies will seek further enhancements such as temperature monitoring. In his view, there will also be increased interest in solutions that offer serialised traceability. Westmoreland believes that operating system advancements and the challenge of potentially new operating systems being available to the business community in the future is one to watch. “Cloud applications
been a higher demand for smartphones in the enterprise – including, for example, public safety officials looking to access databases while outside their vehicles.” That said, Hurt maintains there is a growing number of customers and partners who, coming from the smartphone business, are
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are also leveraged off the ability to be able to communicate reliably, coupled with realistic data over the network charging,” he said. “Users are always looking to push the benefits of their internal ‘within the four walls’ solutions in to the field, and for the first time part of that 1990s ‘blue-sky’ thinking is now emerging as a reality.”
December 2010
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT 31
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