KonaWare is back in the trucking tech news.

The Silicon Valley tech provider elbowed into the trucking technology scene last year, providing wireless platforms that bridge communications media, working over satellite and all kinds of ground-based systems. KonaWare announced releationships with software providers like FreightDATA and Melton Techologies on the LTL side and TMW Systems on the truckload side.
KonaWare set its sights on inexpensive handheld devices, PDAs, for example. The company offered a solution for cell phone handsets on the Nextel network in late November, KonaWare announced it would work with Psion Teklogix and Accord Software to deliver a complete mobile computing solution for the LTL industry.
It seems the next step in that process is being taken. Last week, KonaWare announced it would partner with IntelliMark, a provider of technology integration and support, to add serious RFID to the KonaWare mix. Of course, RFID stands for radio frequency identification, the rapidly evolving, wireless alternative to bar code.
According to the press release, “KonaWare's Mobile T&L Suite (T&L stands for Trucking & Logistics) combined with IntelliMark's integration and RFID expertise will provide world-class mobile RFID solutions to transportation and logistics providers.”
KonaWare will offer interrogators, handheld RFID readers, that will be able to scan freight for readable RFID tags, even where there is no wireless service available. In that case the handheld will store information in memory until it again comes in range of wireless service. Then the data will be transmitted and integrated into the enterprise where it will be visible and available for other applications.
KonaWare told Truckinginfo.com it sees its mobile RFID solution functioning in a number of instances:
* In a pick up customer site the application would scan loaded items then capture time and asset info, display the pickup and delivery schedule, then update the management system software.
* In cross-dock and warehouse settings the application would scan loaded and unloaded items, display manifests, search and update databases, validate manifests and enter OS&D (Over, Short & Damaged) information.
* At the delivery stage delivered items are scanned and the system displays the updated manifest, enters OS&D items, enters time information and provides proof-of-delivery through signature capture.
All information is transmitted wirelessly back and forth along terrestrial and satellite networks, to the enterprise or operations software through the KonaWare service center.
Last October, Konaware introduced a system that can communicate via Wi-Fi when in truck stops, freight yards, or when near public Wi-Fi spots, via T-Mobile when in range of a cellular tower or over the ORBCOMM satellite network when on the open road and out of range of T-Mobile network range. KonaWare software automatically selects the cheapest wireless routing.
In a press release at the time, KonaWare said the combined network costs of the system “are less than $25 per month per vehicle.”