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As warehouses across the nation begin to resume operations, it is crucial to maintain a high focus on maximizing employee safety in addition to workflow productivity. To keep workers safe and efficient, Zebra has once again broken through expectations by upgrading its trusted MotionWorks service, delivering a safe balance between productivity and safety. As a Zebra Premier Solutions Partner, Avalon Integration is here to answer your questions on the new Zebra MotionWorks Proximity.

What is Zebra MotionWorks Proximity and how is it different from regular MotionWorks?

A warehouse using Zebra MotionWorks Proximity

Zebra’s Proximity MotionWorks uses locationing technology deployed into your workforce

Developed by the leaders in intelligent automation, Zebra’s Proximity MotionWorks uses locationing technology deployed into your workforce using your staff’s handheld devices to help enforce social distancing measures without halting operations. Sustained by WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, Zebra MotionWorks can help:

  • Maintain stipulated social distancing guidelines with vibrational alerts
  • Track proximity events lasting over 5 minutes to help manage high-density workspaces
  • Integrate safe fast contact tracing in the event of contamination to deploy sectionalized quarantines

How does Proximity work?

2 Warehouse workers using the MC9300 safely distanced in a warehouse

Vibrational signals help your workforce maintain social distancing guidelines

Zebra Proximity MotionWorks can be downloaded onto your staff’s handheld, serving as a seamless contact tracing solution. Assigned devices are able to generate sensing data, recording proximity events without using personal data. Moreover, devices also alert you of close/prolonged proximity events through vibrational signals to help your workforce maintain social distancing guidelines.  

How can I protect my workers’ identities with this solution?

Two warehouse workers moving pallets while wearing masks

Zebra Proximity MotionWorks doesn’t require any sensitive information or medical data to work

Because it’s deployed directly on your enterprise device, Zebra Proximity MotionWorks doesn’t require any sensitive information or medical data to work. Each worker is assigned a unique employee identifier used to link to their handheld device. Proximity events are stored for up to 50 days.

What sort of hardware will I need to deploy this?

Forklift driver looking at screen with hardhat in a warehouse

A number of devices work with Proximity MotionWorks

In addition to an MB6000 Mobile IoT Bridge, you can choose any of the following devices in your current workforce or purchase new devices with preinstalled Proximity MotionWorks.

How do I start?

To start integrating Zebra Proximity MotionWorks into your workflow, contact us here

Download our Fact Sheet to learn more.

Zebra MotionWorks Proximity Fact Sheet Download

I can’t believe it was only February 20th when my blog posting started with “Unemployment is at a 40 year low”.

While 2019 was all about maximizing labor productivity, 2020 is shaping up to be about how we can all get back to work as safely as possible.

Here are some of the ways that we are helping our clients implement current best practices:

Signage everywhere should be project #1.

Signage – Back in WW2, you couldn’t walk 10 feet at a government facility or factory making war materials without passing a sign that said “Loose lips sink ships” or something similar. It only takes one person to speak out of turn to give the enemy an advantage. Today’s enemy is the virus, and it only takes one or two folks to give it a foothold in a community. We need people wearing masks, maintaining distance, and disinfecting shared surfaces and devices to minimize exposure and spread. We’ve got a huge collection of signage of various sorts that our clients can post throughout their facilities to constantly remind people to stay safe.

Disinfection everywhere should be project #2.

Healthcare Worker wearing a mask and putting on gloves in a hospital room

Disinfection cycles for shared devices – While you can protect yourself from some diseases by wearing gloves, COVID-19 required more in-depth strategies than that. Rather than gloves, constant disinfection of shared devices and surfaces is the way to go. Hospitals and hair salons/barbershops have long used UV light for this purpose, and UV light can be a great way to constantly disinfect things like mobile computers, tools, printers, and keyboards on shared PCs. We’ve got a collection of UV light-based products, long used in hospital settings, available for our clients.

Employee and visitor screening should be project #3.

Zebra Android Scanner being used in a Hospital to track patients barcode

Employee and visitor screening – Keeping sick people out of your facility keeps your employees safe. The best way to do that is via thermal imaging cameras. We’ve got a selection of cameras that can passively monitor employees and visitors as they enter, alerting you to ones that may be running a fever (for future screening).  The cameras can also optionally check for mask usage.

Social distance monitoring and tracing should be project #4.

Real-time social distance monitoring and contact tracingFor our clients lucky enough to have deployed Zebra Android devices in the past few years, we have a solution that can enforce social distancing and also provide for historical contact tracing, via Bluetooth tags. When one user of a Zebra device gets too close to another, both of their devices beep, vibrate and remind them to separate. And, weeks later, when one of them is diagnosed, you can see exactly who they were in contact with and for how long. In the near term future, we expect these technologies to become available on non Zebra devices as well, including employees’ phones (You’ll still need a Zebra Bluetooth tag per employee though for best results).

We hope that it won’t be long before we can get back to figuring out how to maximize employee productivity. In the interim though, please look to us to help you get back to work!

For more information on how to implement these projects into your workforce, dial Dan McCabe for a free remote demonstration and assessment of your current workspace.

In our commitment to our clients’ and partners’ safety, Avalon Integration is closely monitoring the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak as it’s estimated to disrupt nearly 75% of supply chains nationwide. As the second-largest economic power in the world, aggregating over $14 trillion in GDP, China plays a central role in most order fulfillment and manufacturing processes, and with the viral outbreak, several business impacts may be expected such as:

  • Delayed Travel – Because symptoms can take up to two weeks to manifest, several travel bans have gone into effect, impacting common business destinations. 
  • Halted Production – With less people on the warehouse floor, it is only expected that productivity will slow or stop completely until further notice. 
  • Social Distancing – To further prevent the spread, many organizations -both in and out of the warehouse- are closing on-site activities, further increasing delays. Quarantines also contribute to this as well.

What happens in Mid-March

Cleaning Zebra Devices

Keep your Zebra devices clean

While there is no way to concretely predict what will happen within the coming weeks, reports suggest that at least on the business end of this pandemic, companies should expect a spike in halted production by mid-March as the last round of produced goods should have arrived by late-February. For companies who will continue to operate during these times, we would like to share a few key takeaways from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention and our partner, Zebra Technologies.

  1. If you already have severe or chronic respiratory, consider delaying travels and taking extra precautions to avoid the disease.
  2. If you currently live in a community that has been affected by COVID-19, and your present symptoms, consider contacting your doctor as soon as possible and staying home. 
  3. For on-site team members, be sure to refer to the User Guide of your handheld devices to make sure proper cleaning and disinfection techniques are followed.  
  4. Whether or not you work directly in healthcare, consider revisiting your cleaning and disinfection strategies to reduce the spread of germs.

Alongside the CDC’s valuable COVID-19 mitigation strategies, Zebra Technologies has also shared prevention insight in their whitepaper, Cleaning and Disinfecting Mobile Devices.

To learn more about how you can best integrate healthy cleaning strategies in your operations, don’t hesitate to contact us.