18 August, 2021

RFID tech firms merge

Posted on 18 August, 2021 by David Priestman

Omni-ID has announced that it has been acquired by HID Global, worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions.

Omni-ID brings to HID its extensive range of ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) devices, including passive hard tags and labels and a growing range of active devices that are used by world-leading companies to track and monitor manufacturing components, energy infrastructure, logistics containers, IT assets, and equipment on the International Space Station.

CEO Tony Kington, who was part of the team that founded Omni-ID when it was spun out of QinetiQ in 2007 commented, “Since Omni-ID started life as a dynamic and highly ambitious spin-out, we have been on a mission to provide our customers with a wide range of industry-leading passive and active UHF based hardware for a broad array of applications in the logistics, energy, manufacturing and IT sectors. HID Global provides the perfect platform to push our ambition even further, combining the RFID market leadership and structure of a major multinational organization with our renowned product development and agile engineering prowess”.

Omni-ID has developed original, patented technologies for on-metal tagging to enable a broad range of applications to improve asset tracking, inventory management and material flow management. Omni-ID continues to lead the way driving the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution in Manufacturing & Logistics, Oil & Gas, IT Asset Management, Transportation and Government & Defence, utilizing market leading technologies. Omni-ID’s versatile portfolio of award-winning products provides a complete range of tags with unprecedented accuracy in any environment. Omni-ID is a global company with offices in USA, United Kingdom, Europe, India and China.

HID Global powers the trusted identities of the world’s people, places and things. We make it possible for people to transact safely, work productively and travel freely. Our trusted identity solutions give people secure and convenient access to physical and digital places and connect things that can be accurately identified, verified and tracked digitally. Millions of people around the world use HID® products and services to navigate their everyday lives, and billions of things are connected through HID technology. We work with governments, educational institutions, hospitals, financial institutions, industrial organizations and some of the most innovative companies on the planet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, HID Global has over 4,000 employees worldwide and operates international offices that support more than 100 countries. HID Global® is part of the ASSA ABLOY Group.

RFID tech firms merge

Posted on 18 August, 202129 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Omni-ID has announced that it has been acquired by HID Global, worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions.

Drone to bring autonomous inventory warehouse solution

Posted on 18 August, 202125 July, 2025 by David Priestman

RAWview Drone Systems Ltd, a UK-based drone automation specialist has announced a new partnership with doks. innovation GmbH, a Germany-based developer of autonomous drone-based inventory management systems.

Thanks to ground-breaking technology, the fully autonomous inventAIRy XL drone system is now able to navigate through even the most complex of warehouse layouts to each individual rack location, where the contents are scanned and reconciled against ERP or WMS records, all without any human supervision or intervention and without any reliance on GPS. This is achieved by combining a drone with barcode scanning sensors, a ground vehicle for autonomous navigation and a docking station for autonomous battery charging. The result is an elegant solution that overcomes the biggest limitations of drone-based inventory control: flight endurance, unsupervised operation, and fully autonomous navigation within GPS and light-deprived environments.

Key selling points of the solution:
• Longest operating endurance on the market – 5 hours of fully autonomous operation, compared to approximately 20 minutes of other systems
• Highest workrate on the market – a single inventAIRy XL unit can scan in excess of 2000 rack locations per autonomous mission, compared to approximately 120 rack locations of other systems
• Zero modifications required to facility’s infrastructure
• Autonomous recharging – other systems require manual swapping and recharging of drone batteries
• Ability to operate completely unsupervised and in darkness, ie. between shifts or when warehouse is closed
More importantly, by combining their expertise, the two companies are taking away another major pain point of warehouse operators who are looking to implement drone-based inventory control – the time and resources required to fully deploy and integrate drones into inventory processes.

Traditionally, the process of finding and implementing an appropriate drone solution for autonomous inventory reconciliation is time-consuming, complex, and expensive. In contrast, this partnership gives warehouse management teams access to a 360-degree solution that encompasses pre-deployment feasibility, supply and installation of hardware and software, and ongoing customer support. This means warehouse operators can seamlessly and cost-effectively transition to fully autonomous drone-based inventory control, with virtually no disruption to their normal operation.

Joe Waldron, Product Integration Director at RAWview said:

“As warehouse and project management teams seek to reduce cost, improve safety, and protect themselves against falling labour resources, they are increasingly turning to task automation technologies – one of the latest innovations in this space is drone-based inventory reconciliation.

“During initial conversations with doks. innovations’ management team, it quickly became clear that both companies shared the same fundamental goal – to help businesses work safer, smarter, and more profitably. However, a shared goal was only the starting point; we needed to be sure that the technology behind our solution would meet the aspirations of our customers, and having conducted extensive analysis across the drone technology ecosystem, we concluded that doks. innovation offered a completely unique proposition, which is perfectly placed to resolve our customers’ most challenging inventory management problems, and one that will help us to meet and exceed our customers’ ROI expectations.”

Benjamin Federmann, CEO of doks. innovation added: “As any warehouse manager will know, manual inventory counts are ill-suited to high volume and high velocity operations. With accelerating supply chains, warehouses are forced to assign more time and labour resources to stocktaking activities. Furthermore, scanning thousands of bin locations manually is inevitably prone to human error, which leads to discrepancies in WMS inventory records. Manual inventory operations also present very real safety risks to warehouse employees. These are the issues we set out to eliminate with the inventAIRy XL system.

“Welcoming RAWview as a sales and support partner means that customers receive a critical layer of hassle-free implementation, service, and support – all provided by a leading drone technology specialist.”

Drone to bring autonomous inventory warehouse solution

Posted on 18 August, 202125 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Joe Waldron, Product Integration Director at RAWview said:

3D view into the warehouse

Posted on 18 August, 2021 by David Priestman

The Linde Warehouse Navigator helps small and medium-sized companies to digitally organize their entire warehouse processes. Consisting of a warehouse management system as well as an order picking and forklift guidance system, the modular solution enables long-term time and cost savings to be achieved and features various special options: A three-dimensional view visualizes the warehouse including goods in real time and shows drivers the fastest route to their destination. While doing so, the software automatically documents the movements of the load carriers across different storage locations.

Many small and medium-sized companies in Germany and other European countries still handle their warehouse processes manually using tables, lists and paper printouts. “In the long run, however, this is neither efficient nor up-to-date and is detrimental to profit and competitiveness,” says Christoph Hock, Product Manager Software Solutions. “Even with fleets of three or four forklifts, it quickly becomes confusing when incoming and outgoing goods processes as well as storage and retrieval operations are organized using paperwork.”

The Linde Warehouse Navigator provides a solution in the form of digital warehouse management. Its range of functions can be adapted to different warehouse scenarios and expanded step by step. The developers placed great importance on providing clear, configurable user interfaces, and ensured that mobile devices can be integrated in the system. Training and go-live support are part of every package solution. The required software licenses can be either purchased or rented via a monthly fee. This also includes the charges for cloud hosting.

Reliable goods tracking and complete overview

Once installed, the Linde Warehouse Navigator can be used for the paperless control, monitoring and documentation of all orders and inventories as well as goods movements in the warehouse. The basis is the warehouse management system (WMS) which is suited for all warehouse types as well as standard storage and retrieval strategies. “In addition, even the entry-level version offers customers an overview of specific key figures on the basis of which they can further improve their processes,” says Christoph Hock.

For Product Manager Hock, the highlight of the software is that it enables 3D visualization of all storage locations that shows the current occupancy for the entire plant site. Selected items are color-coded so that their position in the warehouse is easy to identify. “This function is particularly helpful for block warehouses,” says Hock. In addition to this is the continuous tracking of load carriers via the optional Real-Time Locating System (RTLS).

In conjunction with the RTLS, the forklift guiding system (FGS) coordinates the routes of the industrial trucks in real time and displays all forklifts and AGVs operating in the warehouse. Transport orders are either generated manually by the employees, for example via the “drag-and-drop” feature in the warehouse visualization system or via a forklift call system (call button). Alternatively, orders can also be assigned automatically, for example from the ERP system via an interface or when predefined thresholds are not met. The optimal route to the destination is shown to the drivers via arrows in the 3D view. The source and destination of the transport order are also highlighted in colour.

The third component of the Linde Warehouse Navigator is the order picking system. The system bundles smaller orders with various individual items for parallel picking (multi-order picking). Larger orders can be divided into several partial orders and consolidated afterwards.

Last but not least, the software solution helps harmonize the operational IT landscape and reduces the number of contacts involved. Very narrow aisle trucks and AGVs can be integrated via standard interfaces. “This ensures short commissioning times and reduces costs,” explains Christoph Hock.

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