Honeywell has developed software to help companies enforce Covid-19 site health and safety procedures for mobile workers in the warehousing, logistics, health care and retail fields.
 
The features, offered through the Honeywell Operational Intelligence asset management platform for the workplace, monitor on-site social distancing compliance, help enforce customisable device cleaning procedures and deploy software to trace digitally who has handled each device.
 
These features provide employees and managers with real-time data to respond to critical factors for businesses re-opening under modified conditions due to rapidly evolving health and safety guidelines. Honeywell is making this expanded functionality available to Operational Intelligence customers, and Honeywell device users can rapidly deploy these features on the platform.
 
“Companies are at risk of losing tens of millions of dollars or more from reductions in productivity due to potential illness and spread of disease,” said Kevin Dehoff, president of Honeywell’s productivity products business. “Mobile devices are a critical tool for business operations, and our enhanced software is designed to help companies respond in this ever-changing environment. We are working with customers globally to deploy this to their workforce.”
 
These software features are a part of an effort to help important sectors of the global economy recover quickly. This expanded functionality gives employees the data they need at their fingertips to act quickly on health and safety issues, increasing worker productivity and decreasing device downtime while reducing exposure to diseases that can be spread through contact or touch. The features include:

• Social distancing proximity detection allows organisations to prioritise and monitor social distancing practices. The feature monitors the proximity between Honeywell devices and logs alerts, allowing frontline workers to promote social distancing and adherence to safety guidelines.
• Check out-in and device cleaning management establishes processes to check out and in devices during a worker’s shift, giving employers device tracing data and alerting workers on when to clean workplace assets. The feature can also send alerts to clean other assets and areas of the worksite.
• Remote control and remote wipe give IT administrators the availability to take control of a device quickly in any location to investigate and fix issues remotely and digitally wipe devices to original factory settings, allowing IT professionals to maintain social distances.
• Customer counter device uses shared, real-time data to employees at multiple entrances to remain in-sync and count as customers enter and exit.

These features, combined with unified communications tools such as Honeywell Smart Talk, provide constant communication for device-enabled employees practicing social distancing, speeding up tasks and instantly connecting teams.

Honeywell is also expanding its mobility, scan and print offerings featuring disinfectant-ready housings. These housings, available on select general purpose, industrial and non-healthcare Honeywell products, are designed for frequent cleaning using common cleaning products but with the same durability expected from rugged devices.

These devices can be used throughout the warehousing, logistics and retail fields with the same ease of use as standard Honeywell products but can promote a healthier work environment for employees and customers.

Harsh cleaning can degrade standard plastic housings, causing vital workplace assets to become discoloured and parts to become brittle and break. Disinfectant-ready housings have been proven to be durable in more than a decade of use in the healthcare industry.

Honeywell was the first company in the barcode industry to introduce disinfectant-ready housings to help with cleaning protocols, potentially reducing the risk of spreading infectious diseases. The Operational Intelligence features combined with an expanded disinfectant-ready housings device portfolio can help businesses lay the groundwork to create a healthier workplace.