Mobile logistics computers go to war

Dec. 14, 2001
Symbol Technologies, which makes a line of wireless mobile computers designed for logistics operations in harsh work environments, is gaining the ultimate in real-world testing for its products – courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps. Symbol has provided Marines fighting in Afghanistan with thousands of its PDT 7240 mobile computers with integrated bar-code scanning and wireless LAN communications to
Symbol Technologies, which makes a line of wireless mobile computers designed for logistics operations in harsh work environments, is gaining the ultimate in real-world testing for its products – courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Symbol has provided Marines fighting in Afghanistan with thousands of its PDT 7240 mobile computers with integrated bar-code scanning and wireless LAN communications to accurately track, manage and deploy the thousands of tons of supplies the Corps needs to support its operations in-country. Such technology for military and Federal civilian logistics operations is part of the AIT II contract awarded to Symbol by the Department of the Defense.

At major Marine logistics bases located in the U.S., the PDT 7240s capture bar-coded information printed on durable polyester labels. The scanned data is then communicated over a Spectrum24 wireless network for real-time data transfer and inventory accountability.

In military Theaters of Operations, such as Afghanistan, inventory is tracked using the PDT 7240s and communicated back to a mobile server housed in a wireless laptop. This allows quick, accurate and efficient data collection.

"Our Marines need to be focused on their military goals, and we need to ensure that they have the proper tools and supplies to accomplish their objectives," said Captain Gary Clement, AIT Project Officer of the Marine Corps Systems Command out of Quantico, VA. "As part of our Embarkation Program, we've been tasked with injecting an automatic identification system into the existing logistics system infrastructure to ensure accurate and precise inventory tracking. Symbol's mobile computers have been extremely useful in accomplishing this task."

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Sean Kilcarr | Editor in Chief

Sean reports and comments on trends affecting the many different strata of the trucking industry -- light and medium duty fleets up through over-the-road truckload, less-than-truckload, and private fleet operations Also be sure to visit Sean's blog Trucks at Work where he offers analysis on a variety of different topics inside the trucking industry.

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