It's a brave new world

We have an opportunity to marry identification to information capture and then supercharge them with new data transfer techniques.

By -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/1/2001

I know you've heard me say it before, but I have to say it again: "You can't manage what you can't control, and you can't control what you can't identify." But there is now a sometimes overlooked reality. Identifying something-be it a person, place, or thing-at the point of activity is worthless if you can't get the information into a computer system that can help you manage that identified resource.

Why do I bring up this new reality? Over the past few years, we have been given some new tools that address not only the identification and data capture challenges, but the need to transfer information as well. So in our "brave new world," where we need to share information with suppliers and customers, we need to consider the new methods of transferring information and do so with the same emphasis we put on the new identification and data capture tools.

Think of it this way: A 2-D bar code can provide 60 characters for identification and other useful information in a small, square pattern that is so little that you could put three of them on a dime. Those symbols can be laser etched, pinned, or printed. This means that all kinds of items that go into everything-items such as cars, airplanes, cell phones, and unit doses of medication for patients-can be identified when they are produced, inspected, distributed, and ultimately consumed.

The truly great part about this capability is that the parts themselves can tell this information to any device that they contact along the supply chain. They do so from the point of production to point of use and even after they are no longer useful at their "death." Transfer of information tells us if the items are counterfeit or not, if they are part of a lot that needs to be recalled, and if an expiration date has been passed.

To make all those things happen, the identification, lot, and other numbers need to be distributed to many, many places. Moreover, when they're read, the information needs to be forwarded to many other places so they can be matched against data files.

Certainly the new breed of wireless networks helps in this distribution process. But so does the Internet. New Internet backbone technology makes it possible to have the soda machine on your shop floor tell the vending machine company when it was last used, what was purchased, what its temperature is, and whether it needs service. The brave new world is all about transferring information inexpensively and reliably to other systems that can decide about service, replenishment, and market demand.

Imagine machines on your assembly line or the assembly line of your customer "telling" you or your supplier how many parts were used, second to second, and what a part's lot or serial number was. Your machine or your customer's could also tell a supplier as well as a user's QA staff if the parts were trending out of tolerance or were remaining in tolerance.

The point is that in our brave new world we will have to be in control unlike we have ever been before. To do this we have an opportunity and a responsibility to marry identification to information capture and then supercharge it with new data transfer techniques. Go for it.