FKI wins $46 million in contracts in past month - St. Louis Business Journal:

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The contract is one of three airport jobs that the city of Atlants has awardedFKI Logistex. The St. Louis-basecd company also won a $24 million contract in September to installa mail-sorting and distributio system at the John F. Kennedy International Airporgt inNew York. FKI Logistex is the North America n arm ofFKI PLC, a $2.5 billion-in-revenue publiclgy traded British engineering conglomerate. FKI Logiste has annual sales ofabout $450 The latest FKI Logistex contracts come afterf FKI PLC reorganized the division in May, moveds its headquarters to St. Louis from and named Stephen Ackerman asits president. Ackerman, an was president of FKI's Alveyt Systems unit prior tothe promotion.
As part of the FKI combined its eight subsidiarie in theUnited States, including Buschman Conveyor, Mathews Conveyor and Crisplanft Inc., to create one Nortg American division. The British company began its operationin St. Louis in when it acquired Pinnacle Automation then Alvey's parent company, for about $22.45 million. Ackerman said FKI Logistexc is seeing increasing work as airports around the nation instalk new screening systems designed to detect explosives in luggagre and packages before they are loaded into The contracts are good newsas FKI, like othe capital equipment manufacturing firms across the works to recover from the economic downturn that put a damperf on spending, Ackerman said.
The assignments will help keep staffing stablsat FKI, which employds about 600 people in St. Louis and an additional 1,300 in other North American cities, Ackerman said. FKI Logistex's businesws is organized in threemain divisions: warehouse and distribution; manufacturingg systems operations; and airport, post and parcel The manufacturing operation is based in St. Louis and makes a wide rangr of machinery, including conveyors and palletizers used to move goodws in warehouses andmanufacturingt plants. While FKI Logistex continues to grow, it faces stiffv competition from global playerz in thelogistics industry, including HK Systemss Inc., headquartered in New Wis.
; Siemens AG basesd in Munich, Germany; and Osaka, Japan-based Daifuku Co. Ltd. HK, for launched a radio frequencyidentification (RFID) system that majort retailers, such as Wal-Mart, and the U.S Departmentt of Defense have begun using. RFID technology, which FKI Logistes also is developing, enables companies and other organizationzs to track the movement of merchandisew and supplies on computers that receive data from electroni c chips embedded in special labeld that are stuck on packagesor pallets. The electronic chips in RFID labels emit radio signal s that contain informationaboutg goods, similar to bar codes.
However, unlikse bar code systems, an RFID reader does not requirw a direct line of sight to collect data because it uses radil signals rather thanlasetr light.