The industrial radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag and tagging system company Omni-ID has raised $21 million dollars to extend its presence into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) space.
The company specializes in creating smart boxes or smart crates called ProVIEW . These devices keep track of the amount of inventory in the box or on the crate. They then transfer that information through the IIoT to a centralized location and to an RFID digital label (or e-paper label) on the box itself.
With this investment, Omni-ID will be better able to meet the demand for its RFID ProVIEW product. This product looks to replace paper-based labeling with dynamic control and a fluid-flow system that works over the Internet of Things (IoT).
The labels allow production flow managers to better manage their inventory and pass on information to their operators. Through the IoT, ProVIEW tags can tell the operators and managers the history of the box, who has accessed it, what is inside, how much remains inside, the temperature history and even if the inventory is to be used, on hold or on recall.
“They've developed a truly intuitive product in ProVIEW that simply addresses the issues plaguing manufacturers today because of static, untrackable paper-based systems," said Ralph Taylor-Smith, managing director of advanced manufacturing at GE Ventures.
"This investment will continue to fuel our growth with additions to the engineering and global sales teams, allowing us to keep up with the strong demand for our products and solutions,” said George E. Daddis, Jr., CEO of Omni-ID. “Additionally, to support our growing customer base, we will be opening new offices in Germany and India in the coming weeks—adding to our current U.S., UK and China locations."
YFY Group, an e-paper manufacturer and partner of Omni-ID, helped to lead the charge of this investment round along with a big name in IoT, GE Ventures. Trillium International and Stonehenge Growth Equity Partners were also leading investors in the deal.
"We've continued to invest in the company as they leverage their proven technical competencies and deep customer relationships to solve one of the most critical problems of 21st-century capital goods manufacturing—material flows,” said Jim Stoffel, co-founder and general partner of Trillium International. “They've developed the next ‘big thing,’ and the momentum is growing. We're pleased to continue our support as the company accelerates to meet the growing customer demand for its industrial IoT-based solutions.”
What makes the Omni-ID ProVIEW tags interesting is that they are a microcosm of the advantages that IoT can bring to a production facility. IoT, at its core, is about improving your own products by informing yourself about the ways in which you design and make them. But to see that improvement, you don’t have to go all in all at once.
Adding a few digital tags to a facility should improve ability to control inventory. This information can then be used in a “theory of constraints” analysis of a process to drive continual improvement and increase throughput—small IoT changes at key locations for a big improvement.
Adding IoT to a process doesn’t have to be a big daunting task. First, think about how you can break the problem down to smaller IoT systems where it counts. You can always expand your IoT processes in the future.