ZEBRA MAKES MORE ACQUISITIONS

Logistics Insight Asia, 1/11/2007

Zebra Technologies is to acquire Navis Holdings (US$145 million), a global solutions provider for managing logistics, assets, inventories and cargo flows across the supply chain, and proveo ($16.3 million), a Germany based provider of real-time solutions for airportground handlers.

Headquartered in California, Navis provides solutions for marine terminals and other operations managing cargo in the supply chain. The Navis suite of products helps companies enhance productivity, efficiency and profitability by automating and integrating data input functions for real-time analysis and planning. The company also has a growing number of distribution centers using its yard management solution to track the movement of assets.

The proveo purchase builds on Zebra’s earlier acquisition of WhereNet Corporation, a global provider of active RFID based real-time location systems (RTLS). Currently deployed on airport ground support equipment (GSE), proveo solutions use GPS location and GPRS/Wi-Fi communication technologies to get vehicles where they are needed.

Zebra says it plans to add proveo’s product platform to its capabilities, including those in ISO 24730 active RFID/RTLS, to offer new and deeper solutions in locating and tracking mobile assets such as forklifts in a variety of manufacturing and logistics venues.