According to Dr. Jim Williams, Polyonics' founder,"These covert-designed ProductSentry™, configurations not only continue to give you the benefits of barcode technology for WIP and inventory control in day-to-day operations, but also help you protect your products from counterfeiting, warranty fraud, and product diversion downstream. This means that product authentication features are easily integrated into existing WIP barcode data collection systems on-line and in real-time, during the products’ manufacture, and becoming an integral part of your Brand Protection, Track and Trace system."
He added, "Using a proprietary and 'secure' scanner, you scan the barcode labels 'just like you use today', to collect the WIP data. Simultaneously, the ProductSentry™, feature is then read to match the proprietary covert or forensic features used in the ribbon and/or label material which uniquely identify each individual product. Of course, these features are undetectable by ordinary means. The net result is that you are adding an additional data stream with a one-to-one correspondence to your current data collection of WIP and process data, thereby enhancing protection against counterfeiting, product diversion, and other fraud.
Of course the ProductSentry™, label materials conform to RoHS, WEEE, REACH, and other appropriate “green” requirements." Williams continued, "Although this award was for work done in the electronics industry, ProductSentry materials will be equally useful in other manufacturing environments, especially where bar code labelling is currently used.
"This is the second industrywide recognition of ProductSentry technology", Williams added. "We also won an NPI (New Product Introduction) Award at APEX 2009 last year, in Las Vegas."