Sterling Truck Corp. has overhauled its Acterra Class 5-8 family of mid-range trucks to improve handling, maneuverability, ride and serviceability. Changes include introduction of a truck frame with single-channel steel rails rated at 50,000, 80,000 and 120,000 pounds per square inch. With less need for rail inserts, the frame is lighter overall, so operators can haul more payload. The rails' single-channel design also helps diminish the chance of corrosion and reduces maintenance requirements.

Another change involves the front suspension, which incorporates single-leaf springs as standard equipment. Taper-leaf suspensions are available in a range of capacities from 8,000 to 18,000 pounds, with maintenance-free rubber bushings. Flat-leaf springs rated at 14,600-, 16,000- and 18,000-pound capacities are also available.

Some of the most significant enhancements to the new Acterra models come in the rear suspension system. The suspension's rear shackles are spring-mounted, contributing to a smooth and quiet ride. The suspension now is lubrication-free as well.

The manufacturer claims that this vehicle line is ideal for a wide variety of work truck applications, including construction, pickup and delivery, distribution, leasing operations, and food and beverage hauling. Sterling Trucks (440) 269-5500 www.SterlingTrucks.com

The S-3000DT double-tray sorter handles a high volume of product in a limited sortation area. An update of the S-2000 double-tray sorting system, the device is suitable for handling clothing, mail, pharmaceuticals, toys, compact discs and similar lightweight items.

Equipped with two tilting trays on each cart instead of one, the S-3000DT is capable of sorting more than 40,000 items an hour. Because of its "double handling" capacity, the S-3000DT has an economical footprint, allowing it to fit into facilities with limited floor space. Once items are inducted into the sorter, they can be discharged from either side of the cart. This allows heavier items to be discharged to one side and lighter items to the other, ensuring that more fragile items remain unharmed during the sortation process.

Using its advanced induction unit, the S-3000DT measures and weighs each item and scans its bar code. After being fed onto the sorter trays, the items are delivered to their destination chutes, where the trays are discharged in a controlled movement by the company's user interface. With the S-3000DT, both the left and the right trays can be activated at the same time, or each tray can be discharged individually. FKI Logistex (877) 935-4564 www.fkilogistex.com

The Ermanco NBS 90-SP provides right-angle sortation of small products either to one direction or to both the left and the right. A series of narrow belts, each with an individual take-up, enables the system to precisely track product as it reaches specified divert points. High-friction rollers then rise to grip and gently divert product at 90 degrees in either direction to a conveyor or chute, or directly into a container.

The NBS 90-SP carries product at speeds of up to 300 feet per minute and achieves a sort rate of 120 products per minute. The sorter can handle products as small as 4 by 4 inches. Ermanco (231) 796-4547 www.ermanco.com

The TLP 2824 and LP 2824 thermal printer models from Zebra Technologies are designed to optimize desktop space. These ultra-compact, sturdy and easy-to-use bar-code label printers offer a wide variety of media and connectivity options in a 2-inch wide model. They are intended for printing labels, tags and receipts in warehouses, retail stores, offices, laboratories, hospitals, and both postal and parcel facilities.

With one of the smallest footprints of any 2-inch desktop printer in the industry, the LP and TLP 2824 slip into places other printers cannot. They connect easily to a variety of host communication points and have a wide range of connectivity choices, including serial, parallel, USB, internal or external Ethernet with the ZebraNet PrintServer II option, and an optional cash drawer kicker interface (available only on the LP).

Both printers feature print speeds of up to 4 inches per second, as well as bar-code, font and graphics programmability. Zebra Technologies (800) 423-0442 www.zebra.com

The Excalibur Pallet Group (EPG) has expanded its product line of engineered paper pallets. The shipping platforms are available in five different categories: Heavy-Duty Rail (HDR), Medium-Duty Rail (MDR), Light-Duty Rail (LDR), Super-Light-Duty Rail (SCR) and Ultra-Light-Duty Rail (ULR). Each can be custom-configured to fit users' unique application requirements. The pallets are designed for use within the electronics, food and beverage, materials handling, and transportation and distribution industries.

Using a patented rail system for making its paper pallets, EPG has tried to create pallets that are strong as well as lightweight. The company's U.S. standard 48- by 40-inch pallet weighs only 18 pounds and has a load capacity of 15,000 pounds. One of the lighter-duty products of the same size weighs less than 10 pounds. Excalibur Pallet Group (773) 509-9671 www.epgpallet.com

GT Nexus offers more tools for shippers running private networks with the release of its Enterprise Series 7. In addition to providing technology for private networks, GT Nexus operates a leading ocean transportation portal—GTN—where shippers and carriers can do business online. With its service expansion, GT Nexus now will offer Web-hosted applications for airfreight transportation planning, supply chain performance management and analytics, and multimodal freight audit and payment on a subscription basis for private networks. GT Nexus (510) 747-3200 www.gtnexus.com

The latest release from supply chain software vendor Yantra, the Yantra 5x suite, features two new applications—Yantra Reverse Logistics and Yantra Logistics Management. The reverse logistics application minimizes operational costs through real-time control of the return and repair cycle. The Logistics Management module monitors and manages the flow of inbound and outbound shipments.

Besides the above-mentioned applications, the 5x suite includes warehouse management, logistics management, distributed order management, supply collaboration, supply chain event management, product management and inventory synchronization. Applications in the 5x software package can be purchased on a stand-alone basis or as an integrated suite. Yantra Corp. (888) 2-YANTRA www.yantra.com

Provia Software's warehouse management system (WMS), "ViaWare," which currently operates on the Unix platform, will soon be available to run on the Windows 2000 operating system. The supply chain execution vendor says that when it releases the ViaWare solution running on Windows 2000 in mid-December, that system will be the first WMS with "Tier 1 functionality" to run on both systems. Provia Software (877) 776-8421 www.provia.com

A high-speed bar-code verifier from Avery Dennison Printer Systems Americas ensures accuracy in compliance labeling applications. The On-Line Verifier (OLV) provides real-time bar-code verification without unnecessary delays or reductions in speed.

The verifier employs a high-speed moving beam laser scanner to analyze printed bar codes according to user-selected quality parameters. If missing or inaccurate bar codes are detected, the OLV interrupts the print run and automatically alerts the operator. Avery Dennison Printer Systems Americas (215) 728-8028 www.averydennison.com