Honeywell Announces Complete Line of General-purpose Devices with Disinfectant-ready Housing

As our global community is preparing to get back to work, we all have a heightened sensitivity to bacteria and virus transmission brought on by the health crisis. Organizations whose employees use productivity equipment in warehousing and DCs, retail, transportation & logistics, direct store delivery, healthcare, and more are implementing safety protocols that affect millions of workers. Because many of these devices are shared from one shift to the next among workers, health experts recommend that organizations adopt protocols for routine cleaning and disinfecting of devices for employee health and safety.

With this protocol, these same organizations are faced questions such as

• How do you manage and clean devices that are frequently shared or touched by multiple workers during the day or week?
• What chemicals/cleaning solutions can I use that will clean devices without damaging device durability or voiding the warranty?
• Is there a device housing that can withstand harsh chemicals?
• How can I address my organization’s requirement for more-frequent cleanings of enterprise devices (e.g., scanners, mobile computers, printers)?
• Where can I find devices that have disinfectant-ready housings that will be appropriate for general-purpose use?

Honeywell is introducing a broad range of its most popular scanners, mobile computers, and printers with disinfectant-ready housings (DRHs) for general-purpose applications. These are the same DRHs that Honeywell designed to withstand the regular cleaning protocols required to address infection- and disease-control needs of the healthcare industry.

Why Disinfectant-ready Housing Makes a Difference

Let’s take a closer look at some of the real differences between non-disinfectant-ready housings and disinfectant-ready housing exteriors.

Non-Disinfectant-Ready Device Housing. Non-disinfectant-ready housing hardware is traditionally housed in amorphous plastics.  These plastics, including polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (PC/ABS), are usually chosen because they can be easily manufactured.

Housings made of PC/ABS contain a loosely packed structure that makes it easier for chemicals to penetrate the plastic.  Repeated use of chemical cleansers may cause discoloration, swelling, hardening and cracking of rubber and certain plastics after prolonged and repeated use. Cracks can also lead to hardware failure, which increases the total cost of ownership by causing increased downtime and repair/replacement costs.

Product Housings with Anti-microbial Additives.  Manufacturers are increasingly incorporating anti-bacterial or anti-microbial additives into products. This can give end users the impression that the products perform “better” than comparable products without this labeling, when in fact the CDC notes, "No evidence is available to suggest that use of these products will make consumers and patients healthier or prevent disease... No data supports the use of these items as part of a sound infection control strategy."¹

While anti-microbial additives in data collection hardware sounds appealing, they cannot eliminate the need for such products to be cleaned routinely as required by healthcare institutions and new organizational-cleaning protocols. Infection-control procedures demand the use of strong cleaners that cause cracking and damage to traditional plastic housings.

Disinfectant-Ready Device Housing for General-purpose Devices.  Honeywell was the first company in the barcode scanning industry to introduce disinfectant-ready housings (DRHs), originally as a healthcare solution designed specifically to withstand frequent exposure to any of the recommended cleaning solutions.

Honeywell DRHs for general purpose devices can stand up the to the demands of new cleaning protocols due to the heightened sensitivity brought on by the recent health crisis.

Honeywell DRHs have passed rigorous continuous chemical exposure tests exceeding 500+ hours. DRHs are built to withstand multiple cleanings per hour, every day, for more than 5 years and have been approved for 34 cleaning solutions. 

Honeywell general purpose products with DRHs, in most cases, meet the same environmental performance and drop-and-tumble specifications as defined for non-DRH versions.  Consult product datasheets for any stated differences.  The warranty of the DRH product is the same as the non-DRH versions.

For a list of approved cleaning solutions and instructions on how to clean DRHs, see the following:

• Honeywell Instructions for Cleaning General Purpose Disinfectant-ready Housing Devices

• Honeywell Disinfectant-ready Housing Cleaning and Disinfecting Guide (Healthcare Devices)

Honeywell Products with Disinfectant-ready Housing

The Honeywell portfolio of products with disinfectant-ready housing is as follows:

Honeywell “Cleaning Manager” Software

Honeywell is introducing “Cleaning Manager” Operational Intelligence software to support efforts to promote safe work environments. Honeywell Cleaning Manger provides you with the tools to configure and establish cleaning procedures and alerts for all employees to follow and employees electronically log cleaning events. Features include:

• Assign assets during shifts. Assign assets to individual users during shifts (check-in/check-out).
• Configure cleaning procedures. Configure unique cleaning procedures per site/organization.
• Configurable cleaning triggers. Configure criteria to trigger device cleaning such as when a device has new user (integrated with Launcher login or other login APIs) or site time duration (e.g. every 8 hours).
• User cleaning acknowledgement. Each device cleaning event will require user acknowledgement.
• Suite of reports and analytics. Review data such as when each device was last cleaned or identify users that used a specific device over a period of time (identify at risk individuals).

Contact a Honeywell Solutions Expert today!  Call 1-800-934-3163.
 

¹ Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health Care Facilities