Frontline Solutions is on lots of logisticians' radar
Contents:
Plenty to look at on hand
Exhibitors getting inquiries
By Michael Lear-Olimpi, Managing Editor, Logistics Online
CHICAGO – The trade show and user seminars at Frontline Solutions, the radio-frequency identification (RFID), and automatic-identification and data-capture show and conference started off strong Tuesday.
The show, known until this year as ScanTech, opened at the Rosemont Convention Center next to O'Hare International Airport. It's produced by Cleveland's Advanstar Communications, a business-to-business information company, and sponsored by AIM, the Pittsburgh-based auto-ID industry group, among others.
The trade show at Frontline Solutions (formerly ScanTech)was getting busy shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Rosemont Convention Center next to O'Hare International Airport outside Chicago. Wednesday was the third day of the exposition and conference, which began Monday with a daylong seminar. The trade show and a slew of 75-minute training meetings opened yesterday. Photos by Michael Lear-Olimpi
Attendance figures weren't available today, but traffic in the 100,000-square-foot exhibit hall was strong shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday, when the show floor opened, and heavy this morning. About 300 companies showed products designed to track, ship and distribute goods in a variety of logistics operations in manufacturing and other settings. Many companies unveiled products at the show; others showed established lines.
Seminars on using the equipment opened the conference portion of Frontline Solutions at 8 a.m. and were well attended through the day.
Attendance at the smaller Parcel Logistics Expo, being held simultaneously in an adjacent exhibit hall, was lighter shortly after that show floor opened, but traffic built steadily through the first half of the morning. Parcel Logistics Expo is a show and conference that focuses on the small-parcel shipping industry. It features exhibits of systems for packing, tracking and shipping.
Plenty to look at on hand
"We're just starting to barcode our products," Diane Jensen, parts manager for Gun Parts Corp., West Hurley, New York, said as she wandered the exhibit hall around noon Tuesday. "We're all on paper now. We have 3 million parts. I'm trying to absorb what's out there."
Jensen said the company, which supplies a large array of gun-related concerns, from gun shops to retail outlets, has five warehouses. Product is received, assigned a colored tag and put away in bins until it's needed.
Heather O'Rourke (center), a senior systems analyst with Wallace Computer Services, Lisle, Illinois, checks out a display on a new flat monitor hooked up to IBM's AS/400 server at IBM's booth. With O'Rourke is Linda Vance, also of Wallace. They were among four Wallace employees looking for new technologies to help manage the manufacturing process at Wallace.
"We put it away and hope it's in the bin [when it's needed]," Jensen said. "Right now, we ensure that by having a parts specialist look at it."
Jensen said it was her first time at the show, that she had never attended ScanTech.
Todd Edmondson and Barb Matthews of TVL Inc., an Internet-based asset-tracking company in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, were scouting the show for possible alliances.
"We're looking for systems for the Internet, and for partners, trying to find out what challenges people are facing," Edmondson, the company's president and chief executive officer, said.
Matthews, TVL's product manager, added that they were also examining scanning and other wireless technologies.
with supply-chain and information managers looking
for barcode systems. Zebra was one of many well-known
supply-chain and logistics-support companies with
heavy booth traffic at Frontline Solutions.
Malkah Eluani, a buyer for Identi of Monterrey, Mexico, was looking for barcoding solutions for her company to assist in shipment of technology goods.
"We're also interested in finding partners we can work with, so we're looking for that, too," Ramiro Martinez, an Identi custom-engineering specialist working with Eluani, explained.
They hadn't found either by about noon, but were optimistic that they would.
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Exhibitors getting inquiries
Exhibitors seemed happy just a few hours into the exhibition.
"We've been very happy with traffic," said Kathryn S. Zent, manager of marketing communications for Datamax of Orlando, Florida. "We've received a lot of good leads – solid qualified leads – and it's only two and a half hours into the show."
consultants with IBM, a Norcross, Georgia, talk with
Paul Yarian of Interlink, Carrolton, Texas. LXE makes
a number of wireless communications and data-collection
products for a wide spectrum of logistics operations.
Interlink makes an array of products for automating the warehouse.
Kim D. Majure, marketing-communications manager for Roswell, Georgia, based warehousing-management system (WMS) company IBM was also pleased with traffic early in the show.
"It's been good so far," Majure said around noon, adding that it was early in the show and that she expected traffic to pick up later in the day.
Established market names like Majure and Logility helped lure warehousing managers and other logistics-operations decision-makers to their booths.
"We've definitely had the kind of qualified leads we're looking for," Ronna M. Charles, a marketing associate with Atlanta-based software company Logility, said. "This is a good show, because people, like warehouse managers who have stopped by, know what they want, and that's good."
manager with Macrosolve Inc., Tulsa, Oklahoma, about
the Falcon family of handheld and vehicle-mounted
wireless data-collection terminals. A Falcon is mounted
on the right post of the lift-truck cage. The truck
is a Hyster 35, supplied for the PSC booth by United
Lift Truck of Bellwood and Lansing, Illinois.
Flo Smart and Terry Alderson, a buyer and a research developer, respectively, for Boeing, were in from the aerospace company's Wichita, Kansas, facility, looking for technology that will allow the center, which manufacturers and refits aircraft, to better track inventory.
"We're looking for RFID, because we're starting some new projects," Smart said. "We used barcoding before."
Alderson added that, "You have to track." He said that with the large number of parts the center uses, some get lost.
Elisabeth Gobin, a supply-chain project manager with Synthes, a Monument, Colorado, medical-products distributor, was at her first of the show that most people know as ScanTech. She had heard it was the one for the type of product she was looking for.
Kim Field of E-stamp Corp. (formerly Infinity Logistics) shows Larry McGuffin how to put postage onto stamps from the Internet. The Internet is making common connections among logistics-services companies and computer services that wouldn't have been thought of not many years ago. Telxon, which designs and makes wireless-networks for mobile computing and information systems, also has a booth at Frontline Solutions.
"I'm here because I'm looking for the latest technology," Gobin said. "I want to see what's new and hot. I've been looking at the RFID. There seems to be a lot of it here."
She said she was also interested in portable printers and inventory-management products to help keep track of her 4,000-square-foot finished-goods distribution center.
"I guess I have a lot to look at," Gobin said, scanning the exhibition hall.
It was a little before noon Tuesday, the first day of the exhibition, and Gobin was geared up.
You can reach Michael Lear-Olimpi at mlear-olimpi@verticalnet.com.