If you’re about to put a substantial amount of IT infrastructure into the field you’ll need rugged hardware, effective technical support and service arrangements – because for mobile devices, it’s a bit of a jungle out there. And unless you are prepared to recall all your mobile devices every time they need a routine software upgrade, you’ll also need centralised management tools.

These have been some of the lessons learned by two of the country’s largest users of mobile devices, courier and distribution companies Mainfreight and Express Couriers.

Rugged handsets
Mainfreight global IT manager Kevin Drinkwater estimates the company now deploys more than 700 mobile devices in New Zealand. The company uses a variety of PDAs in its warehouses and freight terminals but the largest number of mobile devices are with the company’s drivers – the organisation has standardised on Symbol MC 9063 scanners which communicate via Telecom’s CDMA network.

Mainfreight first deployed mobile technology in drivers’ cabs in 1992 and the current scanners represent its third generation of mobile hardware.

The company first experimented with transmitting data over Telecom’s trunk radio network in 1993 but it started using Symbol handheld devices in the late 1990s. In 2005 it began rolling out Symbol MC 9063 scanners and there are now more than 600 in use in Australia and New Zealand.

A big difference between the earlier devices and the current Symbol scanners is that with the older technology a number of different devices had to be deployed separately – for example the CDMA modem was separate to the handset.

“Now the whole shooting match, wireless networking and CDMA, is in one unit,” says Drinkwater. “We still use cradles to secure the handset inside the cab, but it’s true mobile computing now rather than portable computing.”

The current scanners are also much more powerful than their predecessors and they run the Windows Mobile operating system.

“This means they are capable of doing virtually anything that a desktop PC is,” says Drinkwater. For example we are starting to ‘push’ jobs out on to the scanners which advise the drivers of pickups rather like a taxi environment.”

The Symbol scanners have improved the accuracy and speed of information for drivers and the operations team and have also provided increased visibility for Mainfreight’s customers. For example the new scanners have allowed Mainfreight to improve its SecureTrack solution for high value product distribution, the company now scans individual serial numbers on each product at the time of delivery, as well as pickup.

The Symbol devices are also equipped with on-board cameras which are being used by Mainfreight to create a visual record of any damaged freight, which greatly assists with reconciliation processes.

According to Mainfreight’s 2006 annual report, the previous generation of scanners were frequently being returned for repair or replacement, but Drinkwater says the current scanners are of a more rugged design. Mainfreight is also using Symbol’s central device management software which can upload programs and updates and can also provide remote technical support.

“It tells us what version of the software is being used and if a driver has a problem we can hook into that terminal and see what buttons are being pressed,” says Drinkwater. “Previously we had to get the devices back to our depots.”

Mainfreight has also invested in Cisco wireless network technology to provide WiFi coverage at most of its locations.

This has allowed the company to replace the DECT handsets that were previously issued to storemen and managers with Symbol Spectrolink wireless voice handsets.

“The biggest advantage of the new handsets is that they don’t drop the signal like the DECT phones tended to,” says Drinkwater.

“No matter where people are in the site we can now have continuous voice communications with them. It’s a great advantage.”

Multiple rollout
Express Couriers (ECL) is a joint venture between New Zealand Post and international logistics company DHL. Its largest business is CourierPost, but the group also includes the urgent courier business Pace, Roadstar and Contract Logistics.

CourierPost has recently rolled out about 700 mobile devices to its couriers on the road, while 150 devices have been deployed at Pace. All told, around 1,000 units are being deployed between the various ECL businesses, and a continuation of the rollout to depots and trucks will include the capability for containerscanning, eventually adding several hundred further users.

Whereas CourierPost contractors have been using mobile scanners for nine years, the contractors at Pace had not used mobile technology before.

An ECL project group, which included contractors and management, evaluated five different vendor offerings for the hardware before it chose a combination of Psion Teklogix Workabout Pro handhelds loaded with Windows Mobile 5.0 and Psion’s Mobile Control Centre software. As well as being an all-in-one device, the Workabout Pro is GSM, CDMA and GPRS-ready and has a colour display — providing additional ease-of-use to ECL’s self-employed contractors.

ECL has standardised on the Workabout Pro throughout the organisation, but the varying needs of CourierPost and Pace led ECL to seek separate software solutions. While CourierPost couriers use the scanners to read barcodes on prepaid consignments, Pace couriers need to track each job individually from collection to delivery.

ECL chose Datacom to write the CourierPost software and BlackBay to write the main application Pace and also container tracking software.

According to ECL the new hardware and software will streamline communications and lead to fewer mistakes. The systems will also allow customers to be able to “track and trace” shipments quicker and more effectively.

ECL says it took an ‘agnostic’ approach to the hardware devices and the network used. The choice of Windows Mobile 5.0 as the operating system means that even when its devices are superseded, the software can simply move to the new devices. This will allow any future ECL rollouts to occur over time, rather than having to swap-out the whole fleet in one go.

Support for the Psion devices is provided locally by Pocket Solutions and the Mobile Control Centre software has remote management capabilities for online updates and patches, removing the need for devices to be returned to base for routine software maintenance. ECL can also probe faulty scanners remotely for diagnosis and in some cases can fix problems at a distance.

An interesting aspect to ECL’s rollout was that the devices had to be literally sold to its self-employed contractors because they are responsible for buying their own hardware. ECL organised a nationwide roadshow to promote the benefits of the devices and software and to reassure contractors that they would be making a worthwhile and ‘future-proof’ investment. So far, the indications are that ECL’s contractors regard the $2,500 cost of each unit as being money well spent.

For more information visit the Mobile Business Research Pavilion

October 2007

By Michael Foreman