Captor NV, a manufacturer of time-and-attendance clocking systems knows as well as anyone that time is money and that they had to beat the clock in more ways than one. Captor was faced with the common embedded systems market challenge of today: What development path will incorporate Ethernet/internet connectivity easily, rapidly, and with little risk while avoiding significant cost increases in an already brutal pricing market. Danny Foubert, Group ICT/Product Manager of Captor was given the test…
Located in Brussels, Belgium, Captor has been in business since 1987. "In the beginning we just focused on hardware and manufacturing terminals for factory data collection. Over the years we put more and more into time-and-attendance and access control with our hardware. Then in 1997 we decided to start developing our own software solution. Today we are offering a complete e-HR solution," stated Foubert. Captor found Rabbit Semiconductor on the web while searching for an alternative embedded solution that was cost effective while remaining small and offering Ethernet accessibility. "Size was a very important issue, because we really wanted a solution that we could fit into the existing product housing. Redesigning a housing is quite expensive, so we were looking for a small device we could integrate in as many terminals as possible," said Foubert.
Captor development challenge rose within the Omni product family. Omni stands for One Model Numerous Identities, as "the terminal can drive a network of up to 7 slave terminals (Omni-String). The terminal works both in on-line and off-line mode." Of notable use is the Omni time-and-attendance clock. "The Omni terminal has a keyboard, a display and several reader technologies. It gathers all the clocking from the employees, stores them in memory, and sends the data to the software application upon request or in real time. The intelligent device also stores employee tables, mailbox messages and access control tables allowing it to function even when the software application is not running." Foubert continued, "The Rabbitcore enables the uploading and downloading of data via the ethernet. The core module interfaces with the main board via a parallel interface to guarantee a fast data transfer. Upgradability was not really an issue because we knew that we would not find a product that was 100% compatible with the old solution. Important to us was a product that came with a license-free TCP/IP stack so that we did not have to start developing it by ourselves. We come back to pricing. It is all in one package and we do not have to pay extra licensing for the TCP/IP stack."
But does the buck stop there? As Foubert pointed out from his experience: "When we look specifically at what the RabbitCore brings, it makes Ethernet communication available at a reasonable price. Cost was one of the issues preventing Ethernet use because it was too expensive. Now, thanks to the low pricing of the RabbitCore, almost 70-80% of our Omni terminals sold are equipped with the Ethernet option."
