Identification systems developer Domino Printing Sciences has acquired Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), a 15-person automatic identification and data capture systems integrator located in Dallas.
Headquartered in Cambridge, England, Domino operates in the North American market through three subsidiaries: Domino Amjet, in Gurnee, Ill.; Domino Printing Solutions, in Canada; and Domino Printing Mexico. Adding EIS to Domino’s U.S. operations will enable the company to work with new and existing customers to investigate the potential of RFID within their operations, including Domino’s auto-identification products and systems.
EIS built up its integration automatic-identification and data capture (AIDC) business primarily in manufacturing and warehouse operations. Its RFID business has focused on RFID reader and printer-encoder deployments for supply chain traceability applications. The firm’s customer base includes such U.S. AIDC deployments as BAE Systems North America, Frito Lay and Northrop Grumman. It also incorporates a number of RFID projects, including one implemented at defense contractor Sargent Fletcher.
Domino is paying $2 million in cash for the three-year-old privately held company, with deferred consideration based upon the operating profits of the business. Such profits could reportedly rise to $8.4 million over a five-year period.
According to Domino, both its existing customers and its target customers in the United States are increasingly looking for suppliers able to help provide the technical understanding of a potential RFID deployment, as well as the equipment needed to support RFID deployment. “Existing customers are having to embrace RFID in the U.S., and they need solutions,” says Simon King, director of Domino’s Integrated Solutions Group.
In Europe, where the company earns the largest share of its revenues, Domino says its customers are under less pressure to deploy RFID and are instead looking to 2-D barcodes and other AIDC technologies. Even so, the developer says it is also looking to build out its systems integration capabilities in Europe and Asia, as well.
Domino has built its business around bar coding and other identification technologies, stressing that RFID is just another identification data carrier. The company notes that it looked for a systems integration acquisition company with competency in a range of AIDC technologies.
EIS will be incorporated into Domino’s recently formed Integrated Solution Group and will continue to operate from its base in Dallas, operating under the EIS brand.