Zebra's Industry Solutions can give your business a competitive advantage by connecting people, assets and data to help you make better decisions.
Scale and energise your retail strategy with a digital backbone that unifies your team, informs priorities and drives results with Zebra's retail technology solutions.
Zebra's healthcare technology solutions provide patient identity management, mobile health devices, and business intelligence data to improve efficiency.
Zebra’s manufacturing technology solutions enable manufacturers to become more agile, optimize plant floor performance and embrace market changes.
Zebra's market-leading solutions and products improve customer satisfaction with a lower cost per interaction by keeping service representatives connected with colleagues, customers, management and the tools they use to satisfy customers across the supply chain.
In today's world, the demands on transportation and logistics companies are higher than ever. Dedicated Warehouse, Fleet and Delivery, and Yard and Terminal solutions enable visibility to every aspect of your business and keep operations running flawlessly around the clock.
Zebra's hospitality technology solutions equip your hotel and restaurant staff to deliver superior customer and guest service through inventory tracking and more.
Empower your field workers with purpose-driven mobile technology solutions to help them capture and share critical data in any environment.
Zebra’s mobile computing, scanning, and printing solutions connect each operational area in your warehouse to give you the agility to realize transformational gains.
Zebra's range of mobile computers equip your workforce with the devices they need from handhelds and tablets to wearables and vehicle-mounted computers.
Zebra's desktop, mobile, industrial, and portable printers for barcode labels, receipts, RFID tags and cards give you smarter ways to track and manage assets.
Zebra's 1D and 2D corded and cordless barcode scanners anticipate any scanning challenge in a variety of environments, whether retail, healthcare, T&L or manufacturing.
Zebra's extensive range of RAIN RFID readers, antennas, and printers give you consistent and accurate tracking.
Choose Zebra's reliable barcode, RFID and card supplies carefully selected to ensure high performance, print quality, durability and readability.
Zebra's location technologies provide real-time tracking for your organisation to better manage and optimise your critical assets and create more efficient workflows.
Zebra's rugged tablets and 2-in-1 laptops are thin and lightweight, yet rugged to work wherever you do on familiar and easy-to-use Windows or Android OS.
With Zebra's family of fixed industrial scanners and machine vision technologies, you can tailor your solutions to your environment and applications.
Discover Zebra’s range of accessories from chargers, communication cables to cases to help you customise your mobile device for optimal efficiency.
Zebra's OEM scan engines, imagers, and private label OEM products offer flexible integration and help enhance product development with modern OEM technology.
Use Zebra's Temperature Monitoring and Sensing devices for vaccines, pharmaceuticals, biologics and any temperature-sensitive products.
Keep labor costs low, your talent happy and your organization compliant. Create an agile operation that can navigate unexpected schedule changes and customer demand to drive sales, satisfy customers and improve your bottom line.
Empower the front line with prioritized task notification and enhanced communication capabilities for easier collaboration and more efficient task execution.
Get full visibility of your inventory and automatically pinpoint leaks across all channels.
Reduce uncertainty when you anticipate market volatility. Predict, plan and stay agile to align inventory with shifting demand.
Drive down costs while driving up employee, security, and network performance with software designed to enhance Zebra's wireless infrastructure and mobile solutions.
Explore Zebra’s printer software to integrate, manage and monitor printers easily, maximising IT resources and minimising down time.
Make the most of every stage of your scanning journey from deployment to optimization. Zebra's barcode scanner software lets you keep devices current and adapt them to your business needs for a stronger ROI across the full lifecycle.
RFID development, demonstration and production software and utilities help you build and manage your RFID deployments more efficiently.
RFID development, demonstration and production software and utilities help you build and manage your RFID deployments more efficiently.
Zebra DNA is the industry’s broadest suite of enterprise software that delivers an ideal experience for all during the entire lifetime of every Zebra device.
Advance your digital transformation and execute your strategic plans with the help of the right location and tracking technology.
Aurora Focus™ runs on Zebra’s fixed industrial scanners and VS20/VS40/VS70 smart cameras and comes ready-made for specific tasks like barcode reading and verification, OCR, and presence/absence vision inspection.
Zebra Aurora Focus brings a new level of simplicity to controlling enterprise-wide manufacturing and logistics automation solutions. With this powerful interface, it’s easy to set up, deploy and run Zebra’s Fixed Industrial Scanners and Machine Vision Smart Cameras, eliminating the need for different tools and reducing training and deployment time.
Aurora Imaging Library™, formerly Matrox Imaging Library, machine-vision software development kit (SDK) has a deep collection of tools for image capture, processing, analysis, annotation, display, and archiving. Code-level customization starts here.
Aurora Design Assistant™, formerly Matrox Design Assistant, integrated development environment (IDE) is a flowchart-based platform for building machine vision applications, with templates to speed up development and bring solutions online quicker.
Designed for experienced programmers proficient in vision applications, Aurora Vision Library provides the same sophisticated functionality as our Aurora Vision Studio software but presented in programming language.
Aimed at machine and computer vision engineers, Aurora Vision Studio software enables users to quickly create, integrate and monitor powerful machine vision applications without the need to write a single line of code.
Adding innovative tech is critical to your success, but it can be complex and disruptive. Professional Services help you accelerate adoption, and maximise productivity without affecting your workflows, business processes and finances.
Zebra's Managed Service delivers worry-free device management to ensure ultimate uptime for your Zebra Mobile Computers and Printers via dedicated experts.
Find ways you can contact Zebra Technologies’ Support, including Email and Chat, ask a technical question or initiate a Repair Request.
Zebra's Circular Economy Program helps you manage today’s challenges and plan for tomorrow with smart solutions that are good for your budget and the environment.
There are seven people at Zebra who can say they “were there when” the company made its initial public offering (IPO) on August 15, 1991. Tom Zwier is one of them.
He may not remember exactly where he was that day or what project he was working on, but the mechanical engineer remembers the feeling he had. The work they were doing was important – game changing even for people everywhere, not just the customers he was supporting day in and day out. It’s a feeling he still has today. It’s part of the reason why he has stuck with The Herd all these years. Keep reading to find out what it was like to work alongside Zebra’s founders and why he was a bit shocked to see their “far-fetched” vision for the company come true…
Your Edge Blog Team: How did you find Zebra? Or did we find you?
Tom: I was looking for a new job and had a headhunter scheduling interviews for me. None of those companies excited me in any way. I happened to see a small ad in a local newspaper for Data Specialties Incorporated (DSI) in Northbrook, Illinois, so I scheduled an interview. I immediately felt at ease during the interview. The man that interviewed me was personable, friendly, and rather laid back. The place was quite small and had a family atmosphere. The electro-mechanical products were quite interesting to me. And the company’s suburban location was exactly where I wanted to work.
Your Edge Blog Team: How did you end up working with our Custom Application Group (CAG) in Lincolnshire, Illinois?
Tom: I have always been in mechanical engineering in some form. I was hired to work in the Manufacturing Engineering group of DSI in 1981. I was transferred to New Product Engineering soon after to assist with the development of the first barcode printer we developed. I continued to work in New Product Engineering for many years and was eventually asked to help start a Manufacturing Engineering department, now called Sustaining Engineering. Once that got going, I went back to New Product Engineering for a while. I was then asked to join a new group created for Zebra to add RFID capability to our printers. Once we had RFID going, the group was disbanded and I went back to New Products for a bit before being asked to work in the CAG. After a few years in CAG, I went back to New Products to support the development of a new RFID print engine and the ZT600 Series industrial printers. Last September, I was reassigned to CAG again and am now responsible for mechanical customizations of Zebra products for customers.
Your Edge Blog Team: Wow, it sounds like you’ve had the opportunity to contribute to Zebra’s growth – and our customers’ success – in some big ways. Do you remember what you were working on for Zebra at the time of the IPO (August 15, 1991)?
Tom: No specific recollections, but Zebra was constantly creating new and better printers, as we continue to do today.
Your Edge Blog Team: What was the vision for the company at the time, as you recall it?
Tom: The company’s founders Ed Kaplan and Gary Cless often talked about Zebra becoming the next IBM. As a company that had 89 employees in a tiny building in Northbrook, Illinois, I have to admit that seemed a bit far-fetched at the time.
Your Edge Blog Team: What other milestones do you remember Zebra reaching at that time?
Tom: One thing I remember about those days is that every quarter, without fail, our sales figures had double-digit increases, many times over 20%.
Your Edge Blog Team: Why have you chosen to stay with Zebra so long?
Tom: Zebra has always surrounded me with wonderful co-workers and has always treated me well. I have always been happy and proud to work here and have no desire to work anyplace else. But it also works both ways. To borrow an analogy from the pro sports world, I feel like the draft choice that is fortunate enough to finish his career with the team that drafted him, humbled and proud.
Your Edge Blog Team: What’s your best memory as a Zebra?
Tom: Working shoulder to shoulder with Ed Kaplan and Gary Cless as we developed the first barcode printer.
Your Edge Blog Team: If you could put one Zebra-related item in a time capsule today to be opened 30 years from now, what would it be?
Tom: I would have to say a “Zebra” printer, our first barcode printer. It’s the machine that got this whole ball rolling, that helped DSI transform into Zebra Technologies, so it would be a good addition.
Your Edge Blog Team: What do you think will define Zebra 30 years from now? What kind of company do you envision Zebra evolving into?
Tom: To tell you the truth, I never envisioned Zebra becoming the company it is today. From barely $12 million in sales per year to billions is absolutely amazing. From 89 employees in one location to 8,800 worldwide is beyond belief. From what, $12 per share to over $500? And we keep getting bigger and stronger every year.
I am so very proud to be one of the last original “Zebras”, to have contributed to the company’s successes, and to be associated with everyone here. It’s been one heck of a ride!
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You can read more about the vision set forth by Zebra’s founders (and how DSI came to be Zebra) in this blog post.
The “Your Edge” Blog Team is comprised of content curators and editors from Zebra’s Global PR, Thought Leadership and Advocacy team. Our goal is to connect you with the industry experts best-versed on the issues, trends and solutions that impact your business. We will collectively deliver critical news analysis, exclusive insights on the state of your industry, and guidance on how your organization can leverage a number of different proven technology platforms and strategies to capture your edge.
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