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American Tool
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New Electronic Part Traveler Replaces Paper

Greg Wolanin, of American Tool in Newington, Conn., with an eTraveler. Photo courtesy of eTraveler

NEWINGTON, Conn.–As manufacturers explore new IoT products and green initiatives, the paper part traveler has become a target for improvement. A new product, the eTraveler, aims to address this.

The eTraveler system is a combination of Wi-Fi E Ink displays, an access point, and software. The product is said to be inexpensive, durable, and reusable. Steve Chamberland, general manager at American Tool in Newington, Connecticut, was an early adopter of the technology.

"Before the eTraveler system, I had to walk out on the floor to every machine and talk to every operator to know the true status of job progress," said Chamberland in a press release. "We already had time tracking software, and that's fine for assigning hours, but there is more to running a shop than counting man hours. The eTraveler software lets me see the status of all machines at once, modify the priority of any shop order, see the status of all shop orders at once, the status of all operators at once, all without leaving my desk. I have the means to put a shop order on hold, and that information is transmitted to the traveler effortlessly."

The software is not a full enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. However, capability to interface to any SQL compliant ERP system was designed into the system from the start. The website www.traveler-e.ink has a link to show which ERP systems have currently been tested and implemented, as well as which ones are in development.

The eTraveler system was designed for any manufacturing process where a paper traveler can be used. Subassembly merging and sending work out for external processes has all been planned for, according to eTraveler.

The pricing for the system is available at www.amazon.com. The eTravelers use patented E Ink technology, and all software and support for the product is sourced within the United States, according to eTraveler.