Electrical Utilities & Handheld PDAs - New Zealand

This morning I was reviewing the sales inquiries that we have received from both Australia and New Zealand recently, and noticed a company that provides contract services to the electrical utilities industry. MobileDataforce has a great deal of experience in this area as detailed in the following articles: meter maintenance, underground cable laying, electrical pole inspections and mobile electrical utility inspections.

Our PointSync software application enables IT departments and IT consultants to rapidly develop and customize inspection applications for utilities and their contractors in an affordable manner.

RAD Tools for Mobile Application Development in Australia

RADs-ME - rapid application development for mobile environments. That is the definition of MobileDataforce's PointSync software. MobileDataforce has just set up an Australian based support, development and sales center in our North Sydney office.

We have been supporting our ANZ customers from Europe and North America for the past few years, but we recognized that that was less than ideal. Now our support and services teams are available for onsite visits, trainings and support throughout ANZ.

PointSync enables our customers to build their own mobile applications without programming or coding, or have their favorite IT consultant develop it. They can configure their applications, the user interface, business logic and the integration with back office databases from within PointSync. This flexibility and ease of use has made PointSync popular around the world.

PointSync allows companies to rapidly develop and deploy customized/bespoke mobile applications specific to their unique business processes at an affordable price.

Our MobileDataforce Australia team is now available to help you understand how to mobilize your unique business processes. Please feel free to contact us to explore your mobility needs!

Australian Sales

Mobile Application Development Training - Sydney

The tall basketball player from Boise, also known as MobileDataforce's VP of Product Management, Dave Wasden is going to be conducting training classes on mobile application development and enterprise mobility deployments in Sydney in September.

Please let Andy Noble know if you would like to participate. His contact information can be found here under contact information for ANZ.

The classes will be focused on how to use MobileDataforce's PointSync Suite, to quickly and cost effectively develop and deploy a wide variety of different mobile applications.

Road Building, Asset Management, PDA Handhelds & Rented Street Signs

Ever since John Roudebush has joined our team and our board of directors, I pay attention to street signs. I snapped this photo on my recent trip to Melbourne, Australia. I was there helping set up our new sales and support center. Why do I pay attention to street signs you may ask...let me explain.

John spent his entire career in the highway services/roadway building business. He joined our board because he absolutely believes that companies with mobile workforces need mobile handheld solutions to run remote projects efficiently. John explains how his work crews required project data on the job site - data that was only available on paper back at the office. In addition, operations managers in the office, were always seeking data from remote project sites. How much work got done today...are we on schedule....when do we need more materials delivered... In his career this was always done by inefficient paper forms that were often delayed for days and weeks.

Here is an situation he sited - construction companies often rent safety and street signs for use on road building/maintenance projects. These are mobile assets that are often lost and misplaced. The company renting these signs need barcoded or RFID enabled tags on these signs so accurate inventory and accounting of the location of these assets can be known and managed.

Yet another story - he remembers a sign companies never returning for signs and how eventually the grass and weeds simply grew over these assets as they decayed.

Additional examples - road building companies often make a significant amount of their profit by meeting or exceeding quality standards, and by meeting project deadlines. This requires real time data from the project being sent to the project managers and business managers to ensure the right management and resources are being dedicated to the project to hit these numbers. If there is a problem, and it is found early, it can be quickly corrected so as to minimize impact on the quality and schedules. If the data is delayed, trapped on a paper form on a truck's seat, and nobody has visibility to it, then the damage can be great.

Fire Control Panels, M2M, Mobile Solutions & Australia

Flying home last week from Sydney, Australia I had about 18 hours to kill. My seat mate for this trip owns a company in Portugal that develops, sells and distributes fire control panels. The kind of control panel that detects fire in a specific room, automatically shuts fire doors, stops elevators, takes over control of the ventilation system (denies air to the rooms with fire, ventilates the hallways to allow visibility to those escaping the fire), turns on the sprinklers and alerts the fire department. These systems are complex and must be tested regularly.

The problem - it takes a long time to go up the elevator to the 14th floor, down the hall, unlock suite 1467, enter fire zone 82 and test the fire detector, then return to the control panel in the basement to see if it worked, reset the fire panel and then return to the 14th floor to test the next fire zone.

My seat mate was asking if handheld computers with GPRS/GSM (PDA phones) might be the answer. They not only need to record all the test results (which is currently done on paper), but they would like to be able to review the results of the test and reset the fire panel without leaving their inspection location. Hummmm....It is easy to use PointSync to create all the inspection applications on the handheld and to integrate this data with a backoffice database system using GPRS, but how would we control and reset the fire panel?

Machine-to-Machine (m2m) SMS messages are often used to control other devices. Our software partners Sybase/iAnywhere have designed a way to send a message to a hibernating PDA phone, wake it up and have it synchronize with the enterprise database. So the technology to control another piece of machinery certainly exists.

The fire panel would need a radio device that could receive SMS messages that are programmed to command it to perform various functions and then acknowledge the results to the sender. This is very doable. I hope we can get this project, it would challenge my engineers and stimulate their creativity.

Australian Hospital Systems and Asset Management

Another meeting our MobileDataforce Australia sales team had last week was with a large private hospital system in Melbourne. They have the need to manage their hospital assets using mobile handheld computers that are barcode enabled. By assets, I mean hospital equipment of all kinds. They need to know what medical equipment is in inventory, the location and condition of this equipment.

Today the process of asset management is done using paper forms that are later entered into an asset management database. This is far too inefficient for the hospital and they are seeking a way to make this process streamlined and faster.

MobileDataforce Australia will recommend using PointSync to quickly develop a mobile client that will integrate with their existing asset management application.

Melbourne Building Safety Inspections Using Handheld Computers

In Melbourne, Australia last week our MobileDataforce Australia team met with a company that does building inspections for commercial properties. They inspect buildings to ensure they are compliant with fire and safety regulations. Today, this data is recorded on reams of paper forms which is not only inefficient in the field, but requires all kinds of work back at the office to re-enter into a computer system. It is not just the process of collecting data, but the effort to research past noncompliance issues that take up a lot time.

That is the problem - the solution is to use MobileDataforce's PointSync to create a customized mobile application that enables all relevant data to be collected directly to a handheld computer that can synchronize automatically with your backoffice database. This eliminates hours of time each day. In addition, the handheld computer application can validate the data, remind the user what the appropriate answers are, ensure all data gets filled out and guides the user through the various inspection processes.

Sales Force Automation in Australia & MobileDataforce

While I was in Australia last week, my MobileDataforce Australia sales team and I met with one of our Melbourne based customer called St. Gobain. St. Gobain is a large multi-national company headquartered out of France, and with an office in Australia. Their IT staff is using PointSync to develop a bespoke/custom sales force automation application to help track daily customer and prospect visits and to document their calls and sales opportunity notes. St. Gobain supplies their customers with a large variety of chemicals and resins.

Sales force automation is a common and popular mobilization process here at MobileDataforce. We are engaged in at least 3 of these now. Some are being developed by internal IT staff, others are being done by MobileDataforce on behalf of our customers.

New Zealand Cattle Management & Handheld Computers

In Sydney, Australia last week, Andy Noble (MobileDataforce Australia's MD) and I met with Vani Saradhi from Psion Teklogix. Vani has been working on a large cattle management project in New Zealand that involves using over 1,000 Workabout Pro handheld computers.

It was an interesting discussion since we are also working on cattle management applications here in the USA. I wrote about our cattle management activities in an earlier article. We also met with a large multi-national holding company in Australia that owns large cattle feedlots. We are discussing our experiences with them as well.

As you can see in the picture to the right, much to my delight, there are Starbuck's Coffee shops in Sydney as well.

Warehouse Management and Inventory Application on Handheld Computers

We delivered a mobile warehouse and inventory application for use on Intermec handheld computers this week to Pepsi MidAmerica. It was developed using MobileDataforce's PointSync Suite. It was designed for use on handheld computers using barcode scanning technologies. Pallets of Pepsi products are brought to the warehouse, unloaded, scanned into the warehouse management system, stocked and redistributed to local retail stores.

This is the second application we have delivered to Pepsi MidAmerica in the past few months. PointSync can be used to develop a wide variety of mobile applications - warehouse management, sales force automation, field force automation, inspections, asset management, vehicle tracking applications and much more.

Mobile Quality Assurance in Australia's Alligator Country

We sent our Melbourne based sales engineer Pratheep, into the tropics of northern Australia this week. He flew 5 hours north of Sydney into alligator country to help CSR implement a mobile handheld quality assurance application using MobileDataforce's software for their sugar processing plants. After a successful implementation, I understand he made it back mostly intact.

MobileDataforce's Australian Expansion

I spent the last 10 days in Australia working with Andy Noble to open up our MobileDataforce Australia office in Sydney. Please note the good looking MobileDataforce shirt. We conducted a total of 12 sales presentations during that time. Australia is an amazing place, and I am excited at the opportunity to invest in the development of this market and to provide our customers with local sales, support and training.

David Wasden, our VP of Product Management, is heading down under in a few weeks to conduct PointSync training classes for a number of our partners and customers to help them learn how to use PointSync to develop a wide variety of mobile applications for their clients.

Department of Environmental Quality & Handheld Solutions

MobileDataforce is working with the Department of Environmental Quality for the state of Idaho. They are developing their first application to inspect fuel tanks. They are using PointSync to develop these applications internally. We love this! We are primarily a software company that supports our IT customers and SI partners and we love seeing the applications that our customers develop on their own using PointSync.

Orthotics, Medical Systems and Mobile Handheld Solutions

We are currently working on a project proposal for a company that provides mobile services to nursing homes, hospitals and patients in their homes. This company provides orthotics (braces), prosthetics (artificial limbs), dibetic shoes and other home based medical equipment. The majority of their work is done in mobile environments.

They have a medical billing system, an accounts payable system, patient SOAP notes solution and an inventory system in their offices, but they want to be able to access data and collect data remotely at the point of service/work...so they contacted us at MobileDataforce. We are now working with them to document and prioritize their requirements for a mobile solution.

We have completed numerous projects in the healthcare industry that are similar to this one. We developed a full remote patient monitoring system that I discussed in an earlier article. We have developed applications related to compliance with health and welfare departments. We recently delivered a mobile solution to the Idaho State Board of Pharmacy that is discussed in this recent article.

National Park Services & Handheld PDAs

Our customer, the National Park Service, has come back for more handheld licenses of our Intercue Mobility Suite. I first wrote about their solution and project in a February blog article. They are using handheld solutions to inventory and maintain archeological sites in the Southwest.

Parking Garages & Parking Tickets on Handheld PDAs

I love walking into the office on a Monday morning and having orders for mobile solutions waiting. It is a great way to start off a week. This morning we had an order for a company that manages parking garages and parking meters for municipal governments primarily on the east coast and in the south. They want the ability to monitor parking meters, issue citations and record other relevant information about cars in their parking garages. They want to be able to write citations and print them out on a mobile printer.

We will be using MobileDataforce's PointSync software as the mobile platform to develop this application and synchronize the data to a central database.

Chickens & Handheld Computer Solutions

I received an email this week from a very large multi-national company requesting our help to develop a solution to monitor chickens and their egg production. Seems they manufacture chicken feed and want to test the chickens, and how effective various foods and ingredients are. You can never predict in advance the wide variety of business processes people want to mobilize.

This solution would actually be vary similar to the animal tracking solution I described in an earlier blog article. It involves individually identifying the chickens/animals (leg band), identifying their location (bar code their pens) and then adding production, health, and other relevant data to the mobile application. The researchers walk down the row of pens, bar code scan the pen, enter the chicken ID and then collect the data. This information would then be synchronized with a central database server for analysis.

Buy vs. Building Mobile Solutions for Handhelds

I had a conversation this week concerning the issue of buy vs. building mobile software solutions. I have previously written about this subject in a blog article in January and again in May, however this issue comes up regularly so let's spend some more time on it.

Developing a mobile solution is a major challenge for most companies. Why? Let's identify some of the key components of a mobile solution:

1. If you have never created mobile applications, there is a steep learning curve to understand the mobility architecture, development environments, synchronization rules, integration processes etc. A lot of mobile middleware development is just plain tedious, expensive and risky.
2. Are you going to develop for just 1 kind of handheld computer or many? There are many different screen sizes, buttons, accessories, etc. If you want to support many different kinds of handhelds and their unique add-on components - expect a couple of years of development.
3. How do you develop a solution that will work equally well on multiple operating systems such as Tablet PC, PDA Smart Phones, Pocket PCs and/or laptops? What if your business user wants you to support laptops, PDAs and Tablet PCs with the same mobile application?
4. How do you develop and manage a synchronization server? Have you ever contemplated how difficult this might be?
5. How do you add database integration to your synchronization? How do you do this without messing up the production servers?
6. How do you add data validation to your mobile solutions?
7. How are you going to manage secure communications between your mobile application and your central database?
8. How do you build in mobile printing support?
9. How do you manage the deployment of mobile devices and track all the users and mobile applications?
10. Who is going to write all the help menus, user documentation, etc., if you develop in-house?
11. How do you add support for new hardware add-ons such as bar code scanners, RFID readers, GPS, digital cameras, printers to your application?
12. When Microsoft releases the next version of Windows Mobile 6.0, are you going to re-write your application to support the new hardware? You will be required to since all new handheld devices are sold with the latest OS.

I am a big advocate of internal development projects, but only if you have a RAD tool (rapid application development) for this purpose. MobileDataforce has the PointSync Suite which already has most of the features you want already developed and ready for you to configure for your specific requirements. It is rarely worth a company's time and money to re-create, design and develop that which is already available for $5,400.

Timesheets on Handheld PDAs

We are currently working on a project to supply a large international engineering firm with a mobile solution that will enable managers to review and approve their staff's timesheets. This is important because many of the managers frequently travel and need to approve timesheets while sitting in an airport.

This solution will be developed using MobileDataforce's PointSync, Palm Treo's and a backend database application used internally for time tracking.

Pepsi Mid-America & Inventory Management

One of our long time customers, Pepsi Mid-America, has started their second mobile application project with us this week. Their first project was completed using our simple data collection application called Intercue Mobility Suite, but their second application is going to be developed using our advanced PointSync Suite for bi-directional database synchronization.

The application is an mobile inventory management solution. Inbound and outbound products will be scanned and wirelessly updated in the central inventory database.

Asset Management, PDA Handhelds & Oil Rigs

We are currently working on a project that requires a handheld PDA based application to manage temporary assets that are moving through a supply yard on their way to and from oil rigs.

What is the problem we are solving? Many of the assets, are not owned by the oil company, so are not tracked in their standard ERP/Asset Management software. This might include transient or rented equipment. This is a big problem. How is a manager supposed to manage, what they don't know they have?

The solution - a database specifically designed to track transient/rented equipment and materials - with a mobile handheld application used to check-in, and check-out equipment and materials in the yard. When equipment is delivered to the yard without an asset tag or number, the Supply Depot manager uses the digital camera on the PDA to snap a picture, then uses the integrated GPS to capture the GPS coordinates of its storage location and then synchronizes the data from the handheld to the "transient" inventory database in the office.

Here is a typical use of this system -

Oil Rig Caller - "Have you received my widget?"
Suppy Depot Manager - "I have received many widgets, which widget do you seek and does it have an asset number in the system so I can look it up?"
Oil Rig Caller - "No, I rented the widget and it was supposed to be delivered yesterday to the yard, and I need it tomorrow."
Supply Depot Manager - "Ah...a transient widget...let me check my Transient Asset Management system for all widgets that arrived in the yard and were "checked-in. I see 4 widgets were checked-in yesterday. What does it look like (the digital image helps here)?"
Oil Rig Caller - "Large red widget with yellow floatations on each side."
Supply Depot Manager - "Ah yes, it arrived yesterday, and it is in the southeast corner of the yard (GPS helps here). I will load it on the next supply run and you will get it tomorrow morning."

This application uses MobileDataforce's PointSync for the mobile handheld application. PointSync supports field data collection, bar code, RFID, digital image and GPS integration.

10 Minutes & 78 Holstein Calves Using RFID & Handheld PDAs

Ten minutes is what it took to register 78 calves using a Psion Teklogix Workabout Pro (with a pistol grip and an integrated RFID reader) with MobileDataforce's PointSync software on a farm in Idaho yesterday. What does it mean to register? A truck load of Holstein calves are brought to the "calf farm" and each calf is assigned a "hutch". After each calf is placed in the hutch they are given both a visual ID tag and an RFID ID tag. Next, a farmer walks down the row of hutches with the handheld computer and takes a reading on each calf, links the RFID tag with the calf, visual ID and hutch. This information is wirelessly synchronized with a central database in the farm office. The ID information will stay with the animal for its entire life. This allows the animal, the animal's health records and location records to always be traceable in the event of an illness or health concern.

This is just one part of a fascinating revolution in cattle management and animal tracking that MobileDataforce is helping to implement around the world.

Music Fans & Handheld PDAs with Barcode Scanners

My PSO (professional services organization) is just wrapping up a project that helps bands track their "true" fans by using handheld PDAs with barcode scanners. Music fans are provided with plastic "band" cards with a barcode label on them. Whenever they purchase band or concert products, their card gets scanned and recorded. This allows the team to record and reward fans for their ongoing support through a variety of "true" fan programs and special promotional offers.

How does the mobility solution fit in? Often, band related concerts and products are purchased from "mobile" sales locations that are not networked into existing database systems. Therefore, the sales staff use mobile barcode enabled PDAs to record "true fan" sales activities that can be recorded and synchronized with the main database systems at a later time.

This solution was developed using MobileDataforce's PointSync Software Development Kit. The barcode scanners were Socket Bluetooth scanners that work with consumer grade PDAs.

How Do I Mobilize Business Processes?

Every business has certain defined ways of transacting business. Often these transactions involve the collection of data on a paper form. The paper forms are then moved into various holding areas where the data is read, acted upon, and then stored. This process has many inefficiencies, quality control issues, and opportunities for failure.

When you mobilize business processes you are automating these steps, introducing electronic quality assurance measures, making this process much faster, and enabling all these processes to be completed automatically while you are out in the mud and rain on the jobsite.

For small business owners, mobilizing business processes often brings a sense of relief from the knowledge that the data was collected, transferred and stored all automatically. It is not dependent upon office staff to complete the work and do it right.

Job estimates, work orders, project updates, inspections, audits, product orders, etc., can all be completed on handheld PDAs, and then transferred to office database applications without human intervention.

You are extending your business software outside the office to the jobsite. You are enabling the person collecting the data to do it immediately at the site of the work that is being recorded. This improves the accuracy of the data, and allows for the complete collection of data at the source. If you wait to complete the paper forms until you return to the office, you often forget the details and no longer have access to the field data.

There is a concept taught in the book "e-Myth" that all business owners should be managing their companies as if they were going to "franchise" it. The point the author was making - set up your businesses so they are operated on repeatable business processes. Processes that can be defined, documented and automated if possible to avoid points of failure or possible errors or dependencies on staff. Mobilizing your business processes is a very efficient means to accomplishing this goal.

Cartegraph & MobileDataforce - Handheld Solutions for Government Agencies

MobileDataforce and Cartegraph began a partnership last year to provide mobile solutions to cities, counties, states and other public works focused organizations. This partnership has generated significant market interest and we are now delivering solutions such as Mobile SignView which provides the following for sign asset management:

• On-line MUTCD sign library
• Location identification
• Complete history log
• Queries and reports
• Attach images and videos
• Data synchronization with multiple field commands

MobileDataforce's mobile solutions combined with Cartegraph's applications also provide mobile work order management, mobile vehicle tracking, GIS, mobile inspection applications and much more for government agencies involved in public works and asset management.