About Hand Held Products

Hand Held Products, a Welch Allyn Affiliate, was founded with the acquisition of Hand Held Products, Inc. by Welch Allyn Data Collection, Inc. (d/b/a Hand Held Products) in the summer of 1999. A "perfect marriage of technology, products and people," the combined company is dedicated to the design and development of affordable, high-performance, image-based data collection systems for the transportation, postal, warehousing, distribution, manufacturing, and retail markets.

Two companies, one vision

Serving complementary markets, Welch Allyn Data Collection, Inc. and Hand Held Products, Inc. have shared a vision of technological innovation for almost a quarter of a century. From the world's first commercially viable bar code wand scanner to the industry’s largest roll-out of mobile hand held computers, the combined company has led the way in delivering innovative solutions for automatic identification challenges.

Founded in 1918 by William Noah Allyn and Dr. F. A. Welch , Welch Allyn, Inc.. has been a pioneer and leader in the design and of manufacture of high quality medical diagnostic instruments since its inception. A chance conversation between a Welch Allyn employee and a computer manufacturer salesman regarding the tedious process of verifying information on computer cards led to development of the first fiber optic verifier. This product, adopted by IBM and Univac in the 1960s, was the beginning of the Data Collection Division and a precursor to the revolution of bar coding. Since then, the Data Collection Division has pioneered many advances in bar code scanning, including long range CCDs, autodiscrimination of multiple symbologies, advanced linear and 2-dimensional decoding algorithms, and one of the industry's first hand-held two-dimensional image readers.

Hand Held Products, Inc. has led in the design and manufacture of rugged, easy-to-use, portable data collection computers with integrated bar code scanners since 1982. Ergonomically designed for harsh mobile applications, these devices have been selected by many of the largest parcel delivery and field service companies in the world, including the US Postal Service, Federal Express, Dow Chemical, US Sprint, and RPS. Dedicated to developing devices and systems that are PC-compatible and |easy-to-program with universal Microsoft® programming languages, Hand Held Products has introduced a range of wireless devices and peripherals for indoor and outdoor data collection systems as well.

One vision, many markets

In 1997, Hand Held Products, Inc. and Welch Allyn Data Collection, Inc. entered into a technology partnership to bring imaging to a broader range of markets and applications. Today, this privately-held company, spans the globe offering the broadest range of imaging-based data collection products in the industry. With more than 30 sales offices and hundreds of resellers, Hand Held Products is represented in every major market and geographic region in the world.

Quality First

Hand Held Products is dedicated to being a total quality company, extending this value to relationships with customers, employees, suppliers, and the communities in which we operate. Manufacturing operations are ISO 9001- or 9002-certified to ensure lasting quality from initial design and development through production and service. As a result, HHP products carry some of the longest warranties available, and our Sales Representatives, Support Engineers, and Application Support Technicians are ready and able to support the integration and upkeep of Hand Held Products devices before, during, and after the sale.

As we move forward, we will continue to invest and reinvest in research and development, people, and technology to maintain our "world class" standing, and to protect our most precious asset, our customers.