Ashish Kothari

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Serve the customer cheaper

With the advances in computing power and emergence of new technologies, many tasks and processes which were manual can now be automated. Information exchange has become cheaper than ever and businesses are leveraging new supply chain technologies to streamline their business processes and develop closer linkages than ever with their suppliers and customers. But, despite that there are many operations and business processes which still rely on hand-written notes. Many decisions are still made with limited information when complete information could have been easily provided. Let’s examine some of the possible avenues which will allow you to serve your customer cheaper or more efficiently.

•  Remove redundancies/waste   and reduce re-work due to low error rates

There are many front end data collection type activities which continue to use paper forms. This data then is re-entered into information systems by support crew.  Often this is done because the work environment (ex. shop or factory floor, inspection sites) are not amenable for laptop access or the workers are trained to use laptops. An area where this is especially rampant is in the insurance business. Today with PDA based systems, that data can automatically be captured in an electronic format and synced up with the central servers removing redundant data entry tasks and reducing the error rate. Progressive Insurance revolutionized the insurance industry with their 1800+ immediate response vehicles manned by connected front line workers who process the claims at the accident site itself. US Navy Carriers offer another enlightening case study of how PDA applications deployment have reduced rework. Traditionally, landing Signal Officers(LSOs) would scribble a grade and comments about each landing in spiral notebooks. Correcting errors consumed valuable time and distracted attention from the next incoming aircraft. After flight-deck duty was completed, the LSO had to manually type the details of every landing —up to 170 each day —into a desktop computer. A new Palm OS® application, allows the LSO to quickly choose a grade and enter comments for each landing directly on their PDAs. This information is directly fed to the desktop computer at the end of the day by synchronization. The application has allowed the Navy to save time, reduce errors, and allowed rapid feedback to pilots and instant analysis of pilot and squadron performance trends.

• Stream line processes

Businesses need to reevaluate activities embedded in their existing business processes which rely on paper based mechanisms for information transfer to see if there is a possibility to stream line them. Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (www.pdamd.com) provides a good example of an organization which has leveraged applications running on PDAs to stream line their business processes for preparing for the night shift. The transition process was pretty chaotic and relied heavily on hand written notes and verbal communications between the day and night staff. Today, the doctors use an application running on Palm II handhelds to capture and communicate complex patient data and instructions between the two teams. Now, doctors can easily beam or synchronize patients' complete medical histories and instructions to the overnight staff, giving them simple, mobile access to everything they need to know about their patients, from allergies to recent medical procedures.

• Compress cycle times

Capturing data electronically versus paper has another effect which is close to operation managers hearts. It helps compress cycle times since often in paper based data capturing operations, there are significant queues which build up in front of data entry operators and there are inherent time lags between manual data capture and it’s transformation to the electronic format. A stark example of reduction in this cycle time can be found in the case of Volvo (www.palm.com). More than 12500 cars arrived into the United State at 4 four ports. Volvo inspectors used to record data on clipboards for up to 40 different items. The forms were hand separated and given to vendors for database entry. By the time the data was compiled, it was three weeks old.  Now with the palm solution, the data collection and compilation is fully automated. Inspection points can be modified for a particular model or make of auto at any time without technical assistance. The solution completely eliminated manual data entry, overnight mailings, and need to update and print forms, reduced data turnaround time from as much as three weeks to 1 day. 

• Make workers better informed.

Business decisions are never made with perfect information. Often there is significant ambiguity in which decisions are made. But, that does not mean that you should accept ambiguity when you have the means to provide your decision makers and negotiators with all the relevant information that is resident within your corporation. A good example of this information is the existing inventory information resident at different nodes of your supply chain. When negotiating deals with customers or suppliers about delivery lead times, this information could be crucial in your organization’s ability to drive harder bargains or craft deal structures which are better for you. Gunn Automotive provides a good example of a company which has deployed a Palm OS based application to arm its sales managers with better inventory information when purchasing automobiles at weekly car auctions. This was a huge improvement from the past where they relied on reams of paper printouts listing their current inventory which was not only cumbersome to carry but very difficult to search through as well to find what they were looking for.

Technological challenges

Hopefully, by this time you are convinced that the PDA opportunity is worth exploring to see if there are significant gains that you can achieve. However, here are some of the technological challenges that you need to be aware of as you decide whether or not the PDA solution is for you.

Security :

Adopting a hand held computing solution for your work force asks for a higher level of security than the IT departments in many organizations are used to. In addition to being extremely susceptible to loss and theft, restricting access to corporate data and applications to hostiles becomes particularly since the hand helds will most often be used in an uncontrolled setting. Till not so long back, the only security that the Palm OS offered was locking access via a password and private record protection(records were flagged as private and one could not see them unless you unlocked them by a password). Data was not stored encrypted and so hackers could access it if they managed to access the device. But, with the rising interest in PDA solutions, many vendors are coming up robust security solutions which not only control user access but also provide on-device encryption. In addition, complete enterprise and security management solutions are offered by well renowned and known companies like Computer Asssociates, IBM Tivoli, and Xcelllent to name a few. (For complete details on how to Securing the hand-held environment from an enterprise perspective, visit www.palm.com). 

Power Management :

While developing applications for the hand held environment, your developers will have be extra cognizant of the severe power restrictions, handhelds face. With the battery being the single source of power, a power hungry application can undermine the value of portability by causing users to recharge frequently or carry spare batteries. As far as possible, complex computing operations should be designed to be carried out by the server with the client application left to display the information and do simple queries. If the hand held is going to have wireless capability, due to the asymmetric nature of the cost of communication between the mobile host and the stationary host, application architects should explore broadcasting solutions where the stationary host broadcasts the most updated information to the hand held device and ensures that the hand held has the complete information it needs. Further, using local memory in the form of swappable memory sticks which many PDAs are supporting today might be better than polling the wireless network for information.  

Integration with backend/legacy  systems: 

Most of the gains we have talked about in this article come from an electronic mode of data capture versus a paper or form based mode. However, to fully exploit those gains, integration of these mobile applications with backend/legacy systems is key. As any systems integrator will tell you, this is a fairly complex task especially if you will have multiple applications supported on your hand-held. Whether you develop dedicated interfaces for each of your applications or go for a middleware solution enabling your legacy applications to exchange data with other applications, you will have to make some hard choices. Often these choices will be also driven by the other IT projects underway and by the overall direction of your firm towards IT applications.  

Asset Management, Configuration Management and Software Distribution –  

Organizations have sophisticated software solutions which handle the functions of Asset Management, Configuration Management and Software Distribution. In addition, by restricting users from being able to install applications on corporate laptops and desktops, IT organizations have a good handle on the inventory levels, makes and models, network settings, installed software and data backups. Client software upgrades are often handled through enterprise software when users log on to the network and do not need individual machine upgrades. Hand held devices being most of the time not connected to the network and in addition outside in a uncontrolled environment pose significant challenges. There are many tools and software packages from renowned vendors like Computer Associates available which make these a breeze. However, you will have to make a choice between going with a single vendor versus using “best of the breed” multiple vendor approach.