DC Velocity - February 2011

Insightful: 4Front Engineered Solutions now offers the 4Sight Yard and Dock Management System, a solution that allows facilities to monitor, schedule, and communicate trailer movements, load assignment, and loading dock status in a simple, easy-to-use interface. 4Sight provides full automation, visibility, and optimization from the time a vehicle approaches the inbound gate to the time it leaves through the outbound gate.

4Sight combines RFID, GPS, and sensor technologies to give users real-time yard and loading dock visibility, enabling them to improve trailer coordination and turn time management. The robust event-management capabilities and alert notifications also help to reduce the labor associated with moving and managing yard assets.

The software solution features a graphic interface of the yard and loading dock, providing a color-coded exact location mapping and activity display. For gate management, it offers visibility of inbound and outbound equipment. The load assignment and dock door scheduling capabilities allow managers to assign loads to specific trailers and optimize dock door usage. The solution also provides productivity and activity reports on the utilization of trailers, dock doors, equipment status, switchers, etc.

In addition, 4Sight allows facilities to schedule maintenance on their loading dock equipment based on actual usage, as opposed to traditional time-based maintenance scheduling. Dock usage information is collected and displayed, and the system automatically identifies loading docks that reach a usage threshold. Once the threshold has been reached, the system automatically sends an e-mail alert to service providers and maintenance managers. (4Front Engineered Solutions, www.4SightSolution.com)

Riding the wave: Wavelink Corp. has extended its Avalanche management solution to manage printers attached to mobile terminals via Bluetooth. Administrators can monitor and control Bluetooth printers through Wavelink Printer Management, a plug-in available for Wavelink Avalanche version 5.0.2 and later.

Wavelink Printer Management allows administrators to uniquely identify each mobile printer, find its location via its connected mobile terminal, and view printer information such as firmware, battery level, and installed RAM. Usage reports show which printers are used most frequently, allowing administrators to schedule maintenance to extend printer head life while reducing printer downtime. (Wavelink, www.wavelink.com)

Avoiding Windows: Advantech now offers support for Lubuntu, a derivative of the Ubuntu operating system, as a new option for its TREK-743 7-inch vehicle-mounted computer. This gives systems integrators a faster, lightweight, and more energy-efficient alternative to the traditional Windows-based operating system, the company says. Programmers experienced in Linux platform development will be able to quickly bring applications to market as well as avoid operating system licensing fees.

TREK-743 is a fanless, compact vehicle-mounted computer suitable for a wide range of commercial vehicle applications, including fleet management and ware-housing/logistics activities. (Advantech, www.advantech.com)

Clearer view: Next View Software, a developer of on-demand supply chain productivity software solutions, now offers advanced functionality for reporting, charting, and dashboards for its labor management and workforce productivity solution (LMS).

The latest release of the Next View Labor Management System has been enhanced to allow users to visualize any query they create within the system. Users can generate ad hoc reports and charts much more easily, and can also create their own dashboard preferences to allow them to see the data that is important to them.

The reporting, charting, and dashboard capabilities are tightly integrated in real time with Next View’s LMS. The solution allows users to create their own dashboard components, including complex charts that are the result of combining multiple charts. Users can also drill down from the chart itself to see the supporting data elements in real time. (Next View Software Inc., www.nextviewsoftware.com)