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.