IDC says grant will ‘boost R&D budget’

09 June 2008

A £10,000 (€12,500) win has pushed forward the development of a wireless tracking system, according to Intelligent Distributed Controls (IDC). The Derby, UK based control system specialist won the grant in an East Midlands business technology competition and said the product could increase efficiencies for many companies.

The award, in the ANUBIS competition is funded by the East Midlands Development Agency.

IDC managing director, Kevin Buckley, said: ‘Winning the ANUBIS money has taken us into an area that we haven’t been able to develop until now.

‘ANUBIS will certainly help us develop our unique hand held device, and the software applications required to enable the tracking system to work. This project would have been significantly delayed without the ANUBIS funding which is providing a major boost to our R&D budget.’

The wireless tracking system developed by IDC uses a relatively new technology known as Zigbee. This technology, which is being on trial at Toyota for internal logistics process monitoring, has universal applications where businesses need to track the transportation of components, raw materials, finished products, or processes in real time within their plant.

The application of IDC’s technology could revolutionise the manufacturing production and logistics processes for many businesses.