Working to further its vision of marrying shop floor data integration with supply chain management, application network platform provider Omnitrol Networks has announced a strategic partnership with IT service provider British Telecom Global Services, whereby BT’s Supply Chain Solutions group will use the Omnitrol network appliance to facilitate the supply chain optimization services it offers to customers.
“Our partnership with BT started on the shop floor, with the concept that the shop floor is suddenly getting a tremendous amount of information input from various sensors — such as RFID equipment,” said Raj Saksena, Omnitrol president and CEO, in an interview. “The ultimate goal [is] an improvement or optimization of business processes through better visibility into manufacturing operations.”
Through the partnership, BT will use Omnitrol’s network appliance to help manufacturing customers use RFID or real-time location tags to collect shop floor information and track and trace their assets, instead of relying on manual data entry processes. Omnitrol’s appliance integrates the sensor data that is used eventually for business analytics and metrics, Saksena said. The sensor information can be used to provide pedigree and tracking information for product shipments.
Because the integrated data gleaned from a sensor network can be used to foster collaboration between supply chain partners and distribution channels, Saksena said, Omnitrol’s partnership with BT serves “to further Omnitrol’s goal of becoming that platform that provides shop floor visibility integration into the supply chain.”
Omnitrol’s association with BT began in 2006, Saksena said, culminating in today’s announcement, which follows the signing of “a few contracts” with major BT customers that use the Omnitrol technology, including a large food distribution company in Spain.
“Over the last 12 months, we’ve honed our strategy to focus on two specific propositions — asset visibility and inventory management,” said Keith Sherry, general manager of BT Supply Chain Solutions.
Prior to the partnership with Omnitrol, Sherry said, BT had to develop custom solutions to deliver manufacturing and supply chain intelligence, the cost of which made it difficult for its customers to achieve returns on project investments. “An appliance-based solution, such as Omnitrol’s, has not only increased the features and functionality of our services, but has served to contain a lot of the integration into many different devices like printers and other sensor networks.” This, he said, has enabled BT to deploy supply chain infrastructure quickly and, therefore, reduce the cost of implementation and give customers a better ROI than before.
“In the last month alone, we’ve identified as many opportunities with customers as in the previous 12 months combined” due to the partnership, Sherry said.
Omnitrol was named a Managing Automation Company to Watch in 2007. The company boasts close relationships with large aerospace and defense manufacturers looking to increase supplier visibility throughout the manufacturing process.