Honeywell has announced its collaboration with Stereolabs on the development of a new mobile solution that can quickly and accurately measure the size, volume and weight of boxes and pallets in a distribution center to help increase delivery speed and lower shipping costs.
The collaboration will combine Stereolabs‘ stereoscopic cameras – which use a vision-based artificial intelligence perception system to measure the dimensions of products – with Honeywell’s SwiftDecoder software – which captures barcode data and other written information – in one innovative mobile solution. This will enable logistics operators to better plan truck loading, understand the number of vehicles needed to transport goods and effectively trace the items being transported.
“Products stored in a warehouse and transported on a truck contain a wealth of data, from weight and size to the item’s name, expiration date and warning label on the box,” said David Barker, President of Honeywell Productivity Solutions and Services. “Finding a way to capture this data in one place and use it effectively to streamline processes presents a challenge for many operations. By combining the strengths of Honeywell and Stereolabs, we can help the supply chain operate more efficiently and address major pain points.”
Today, many warehouses and logistics providers operate manually, with some using tape measures and weigh scales to determine the dimensions and weight of products for transport. Others use fixed systems or scan tunnels to identify and measure each box and package coming through a conveyor belt. In contrast to these often inefficient processes, the mobile solution from Honeywell and Stereolabs will now allow for more agile daily operations in distribution centers.
The new joint solution integrates the Stereolabs ZED stereoscopic camera and calculator with Honeywell’s SwiftDecoder barcode-decoding software to capture critical weight and dimension information. From there, data is then automatically uploaded to a central database, allowing a business to understand the volume and composition of the boxes and pallets transported in each trailer in real time so it can plan the most efficient and cost-effective way to transport, load or de-stock goods.
“Integrating Honeywell’s SwiftDecoder software together with our ZED cameras and advanced perception stack was a smooth and efficient process,” said Olivier Braun, Chief Product Officer at Stereolabs. “We are now able to deliver a rich, all-in-one data capture solution—combining product dimensions, barcode data, optical character recognition (OCR) information and high-quality imagery—that is seamlessly ready for integration into any warehouse management system.”
