ProGlove has been named a Cool Vendor in Gartner’s 2020 Cool Vendors in Manufacturing Industry Solutions and we could not be more thrilled.
As part of its report on manufacturing industry solutions, Gartner analysts compiled strategic recommendations for manufacturing businesses. They identified four providers of new, impactful, intriguing and particularly innovative tools. The report is prepared for the consideration of Industry 4.0 technology project managers and solutions developers for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to create more complete solutions for their customers.1
We believe this designation validates our commitment to human-centered design and our focus on the digital connection between people and processes – from the shop floor to the back office to executive leadership.
Gartner subscribers can read the full Cool Vendor report here.
There is a lot of buzz around automation and robotics in industry. While we firmly support digital transformation, we echo the experts who confirm it isn’t about the replacement of workers, but the augmentation of workers to work smarter. Working smarter means looking at all aspects of a workflow in an informed fashion to find ways to do things more efficiently, productively, and seamlessly.
Ergonomics Matter
For example, it’s not always obvious how attention to ergonomics can deliver real value for an organization. But it does. Take our MARK wearable barcode scanner: It is slim, lightweight, durable, and goes a whole shift on a single charge. It keeps workers’ hands free with full dexterity. This means barcode scanning is no longer a task that causes significant interruption to workflows. More attention can be given to other tasks, and up to six seconds is saved per scan. Over the course of a shift with thousands of scans this can equal hours. Over the length of an entire production line this can equal days. This significant time savings adds value to the bottom line. (Try the ROI calculator to estimate the savings it can bring to your business.)
The attention to ergonomics extends to worker well-being. Numerous studies have examined the role of ergonomics in reducing the incidence of MSDs and the related costs of injury treatment and missed work time. When those on the front line understand their workplace prioritizes the quality of the tools and their work experience, they are often more satisfied on the job and less likely to leave. This is valuable, as the cost of recruiting and on-boarding new talent is notably high across most industries.
New Challenges Breed New Solutions
COVID-19 has reprioritized most everyone’s workday, including ours. We found it inspiring for new initiatives as well. Recognizing an urgent need amongst our customers, we’ve started prototyping a new proximity app to aid in social distancing. ProGlove Connect Proximity for Android will soon be available for free to our customers. The distance alerts on the app extend to the MARK bringing the notification front and center. For busy, noisy environments an alert on the hand is more noticeable than one hidden in a pocket.
As businesses look to retool their workflows and equip their workforce for a new way of working, replacing handheld barcode scanners with personal wearables is a quick win. Ours are plug & play, meaning they work with most every back-office management system making deployment seamless. A comprehensive smart factory transformation consists of many building blocks delivered by a variety of technology or capability-focused specialist vendors. But sometimes you need just one, a *cool* one, to kickstart positive change.
To keep up to date with the developments happening at ProGlove for our customers, subscribe to the monthly Frontline newsletter. We’ll only earn a Gartner Cool Vendor designation once. But we’ll never stop working to deliver value to frontline operations throughout the supply chain.
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The GARTNER COOL VENDOR badge is a trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
1 Gartner “Cool Vendors in Manufacturing Industry Solutions, 2020” by Alexander Hoeppe, Pablo Arriandiaga, Gaspar Valdivia, Ivar Berntz.
