WiFi ready for factory floor –saving time and enabling mobile automation

That’s the claim from Colubris Networks, which says its adaptive multi-channel technology is now working in the automotive sector and others in the US. Canada and Japan – and saving a lot of time and money. Chris Koeneman, Colubris senior vice president for business development, says that mobile applications, like moving robots, are leading adoption and proving not only that the technology works but that it’s cheap, easy and standard stuff. “A very big automotive company in the US based in Michigan, and now also in Ontario, Canada, is using our systems on material movements robots, for example” he says. “They’re sending information about where they are, what they’re carrying and so on to the management systems in real time – and connecting over the standard factory wireless network.” He says that other big users include NSK, Continental Tire and Sealy, in the latter case with factory workstations communicating with plant servers rooms. All are achieving massive savings compared with the alternatived of hard wiring in existing installations. Colubris must be one of the best kept secrets in the networks sector. The company’s systems are already in use at mamoth organisations like Starbucks, Lufthansa, Swisscom, Siemens and Alsthom. And Koeneman says that it’s Colubris’ background in providing WiFi technology originally for the guest access market that’s making it so versatile. “Working in that sector we had to develp technology capable of handling whatever hits them from completely different users running anything,” he says. “It’s not like the enterprise market where you have some control. That means our systems are very rugged and responsive no matter what’s thrown at them.” Main distributor in the UK is Acal.