Asset Tracking, Asset Management and Mobile Handheld Applications

In this article Trimble's joint venture with CREEC is discussed. CREEC is the China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co. Ltd. This joint venture is to help deliver solutions to effectively manage the construction and maintenance of rail roads and their assets.

How many of you have ever lost your keys around the house, or misplaced tools in your garage or shop? Image having billions of dollars worth of assets that you must locate, manage and maintain over thousands of miles and hundreds of properties. You can easily see how important it is to effectively track these assets, maintain and manage them in a powerful database system designed for asset management.

Geotagging (geotagging is discussed in more detail here) the assets enable you to know where they are located. Inspecting and completing regularly scheduled "conditional assessment" reports using mobile handheld computers that are synchronized with the asset management system in the office, enables you to know their condition and to schedule maintenance on them. Since most of these assets are located outside of the office, they need to be inspected remotely. This is the role for mobile handheld computers and mobile software applications. Work orders, or scheduled maintenance services can be dispatched from the office to the mobile handheld computer used by the service technicians. All of this information is sent back to the office wirelessly so the records can be maintained and the assets effectively managed.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategist, Sales, Marketing and Business Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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FedEx, GPS Fleet Tracking, Mobile Applications and Complaints

In this article on the blog called Trimble Fleet Tracking and GPS, FedEx's inability to estimate their time of delivery to a time window of less than 6 hours is discussed. It is interesting to ponder what technology and business process challenges FedEx must have to not be able to improve upon this.

I wonder how much lost productivity there is as a result of not knowing when a delivery will arrive, and being required to wait most of a day for it. With LBS (location based services) available, it seems that FedEx could alert the recipient when they were 1 hour from delivery, or within a 3 mile radius.

I wonder if it would work for FedEx to announce they would be parked at a certain central location for 15 minutes and you could drive there to pick-up your package early in the morning, rather than wait all day for it. Just wondering....

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategist, Sales, Marketing and Business Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Efficiency in Healthcare Services through Mobile Applications and Telemedicine

Recently my wife had minor surgery on her arm that was accompanied by an allergic reaction on her skin. She called her doctor who asked for a description. She provided, as best she could, a lay person's description. The doctor listened to the description over the phone and provided some simple recommendations. This was relatively efficient telemedicine for a non-serious situation. There was no visit required, just a couple of minutes of the Doctor's time and everything worked out fine.

It occurred to me later that we could easily have taken a quick well lighted digital photo with my iPhone and emailed the digital photo to our Doctor for review, reference and inclusion in our electronic healthcare records as well. Why not? It would likely have provided better and more accurate information. I wonder how many simple health related issues could be resolved using telemedicine and integrated digital photos sent by the patient?

We are at a transition point in the evolution of mobile technologies. The mobile technology is available and relatively inexpensive, but not yet integrated into even basic services in many cases. We need industry healthcare experts to start implementing these basic technology steps that improve efficiencies and reduce costs for both the provider and the patient.

I am reminded of a call I made to a plumber a few years back. I called and said I need a plumber to do a task. I said, I will send over a series of digital photos that show exactly what I need with measurements. The plumber said, I don't know how to receive and view digital photos. As a result, he drove out, looked at the scene I could have emailed him, left for another hour to purchase the parts and returned. He turned a quick 30 minute job into a 3 hour job with the added fuel and travel costs.

Healthcare providers need not be like the plumber. Telemedicine, digital images, and remote wireless health monitoring devices that send data to the Doctor's office at regular intervals could provide incredible efficiencies.

I would like your thoughts and comments on telemedicine and using mobile and wireless devices for providing healthcare services.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategist, Sales, Marketing and Business Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Mobile Inventories, Field Services and Changing a Light Bulb

Today I walked by a van in the grocery store parking lot and saw the doors on the van open. A man had a shopping cart next to the van and was slowly and methodically taking out boxes of light bulbs, entering their product codes onto a paper work order form and then placing them in the shopping cart.

Presumably the young man was not a detailed oriented thief, but rather was preparing to take the light bulbs into the store and replace those that were burnt out. I watched as he looked for the product codes and wrote each one down. Someone is going to do something with that paper form. The likely scenario is that someone in administration will type the information on the paper form into the work order management software in the office when they can find nothing more fun to do.

I wonder how accurate the product codes are after the service technician writes them on the paper form, and the data entry person interprets the handwriting and then types them into the system?

There are numerous issues with this scenario:

1. Inefficient use of a service technician's time - although it may not take a lot of skills to change a light bulb.
2. Inaccuracies in the documentation of product codes and work order details caused by poor handwriting and inaccurate data entry.
3. The lack of timely work order and inventory reporting, as the details are available only on paper until the data entry person gets to them.

Now this particular light bulb changing company may have been small, but think about the ones in big cities or Las Vegas even. Inefficiencies can add up to massive problems as they scale up.

With powerful, ruggedized handheld computers with integrated GPS, wireless connectivity and bar code scanners, inventories can be quickly scanned into the van (mobile inventory) and the mobile work order software can associate the parts and products with work order numbers and synchronized directly into the work order management system in the office for quick invoicing.

We finally have the answer to the age old question, "How many people (name your ethnic, geographical, religious or cultural stereotype) does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is LESS THAN IT DID BEFORE, if you mobilize your work order processes with handheld computers and use data collection technologies like bar code scanners to document your inventory usage.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategy, Sales and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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GPS Fleet Tracking for Added Sales

I passed a blue Sears Appliance Repair van with a white satellite dish on the roof yesterday and it reminded me of their business strategy. The white dish serves as both a satellite uplink and GPRS link to the Internet. The vans are basically mobile WiFi centers. They are able to be tracked via GPS and they are able to provide some significant benefits for the service technicians that drive the vans.

The vans have both satellite uplinks and GPRS connectivity so when there is poor wireless connectivity, the van's communications can automatically switch over to the satellite uplink technology and continue communicating. This is a relatively expensive option, but Sears reports that it is worth it. What is the value proposition?

Sears reports that providing each of their service technicians with live access to CRMs (customer relationship management) systems, customer records, warranty information and product catalogs helps them sell more products and services at the point of work - the customer's home. They have measured these sales and report solid ROI.

The ROI is not what might have been expected. The relatively expensive communication system that each van has is equally used for GPS fleet tracking and to increase sales and improve onsite customer service.

It is important that GPS fleet tracking vendors and users think about the whole business process and the customer interaction when contemplating ROIs. Sometimes the ROI comes from a broader set of business drivers that initially assumed.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobile Strategy, Sales and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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