MEETING BUSINESS NEEDS WITH WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

by Ian Hayes

Enterprises of all sizes and types are making a compelling case for wireless today. What exactly are they doing with the technology? Excluding personal productivity-enhancing applications such as e-mail access, most wireless implementations seek to improve or extend existing mobile processes or mobilize traditionally stationary ones. Giving doctors on rounds the ability to look up clinical information in point-of-care settings improves the healthcare delivery process. Giving customers the ability to check bank account balances or make stock trades from virtually any location effectively frees these processes from the ties that formerly bound them to desktop computers or ATM kiosks.

Rather than talk abstractly about the types of process improvements enabled by wireless technology, let's look at some of the actual benefits that companies are receiving from their wireless solutions. These benefits give interested companies an idea of the gains they can expect from using wireless technology and are a starting point for more ambitious wireless endeavors.

Wireless technology is allowing companies to:

Improve communications with mobile workers. Perhaps the most obvious and important benefit of wireless technology is its ability to improve communications between companies and their mobile workers. Communications improvements are two-way. Companies can use wireless technology to reach workers no matter where they roam and to forward information in a timely fashion. Workers can send information from the field to corporate sites or other employees. By extending the lines of communication, wireless technology eliminates or shortens "blackout" periods of unavailability, improves workers' ability to respond to dynamic situations, and allows them to take advantage of downtime to catch up on messages. Wireless communications take the form of voice, e-mail, and short text messages. Executives at the office retailer Staples use wireless devices to send and receive e-mail from any site. Instead of phoning dispatchers at a call center, field technicians at Brinks Home Security use a wireless application to receive work orders and transmit job information directly from the field. Penske Logistics uses a wireless network to send route changes and directions back and forth between dispatch centers and fleet drivers.

Close more sales. Wireless sales tools focus on improving the productivity and knowledge of salespeople, with the ultimate goal of pleasing the customer and closing sales. Salespeople use the tool to become better informed before visiting a customer, brushing up on account and product data. Visits are more productive, and salespeople are able to answer customer queries on the spot. The ability to check inventory, look up past orders, calculate prices, and create proposals allows salespeople to close sales and submit orders during the call. This fast response locks in sales and prevents competitors from intervening. Companies like Atlantic Envelope, Brandow Automotive, Fiat Credit, Celanese Chemicals, and Cybex rely on wireless sales applications to manage leads, research order history, place orders, and check inventory.

Reduce expensive site visits. Sending personnel to field locations to monitor equipment, collect data, or make adjustments is costly. Dispatchers must schedule visits and resolve scheduling conflicts. Field visits involve unproductive travel time; a 10-minute on-site job may waste an hour or more in travel. Through a combination of telemetry equipment and wireless networks, companies are able to perform monitoring functions without sending workers into the field. Some solutions also allow companies to take corrective or responsive action remotely, with limited human intervention. Utility companies such as Florida Power & Light and Brunata- Metrona are using wireless solutions to "read" electrical and water meters remotely rather than sending workers out to record usage figures. Packaged Ice, a manufacturer of ice-vending machines, installs wireless equipment on its machines to monitor a range of conditions, such as open doors or temperature imbalances, and to alert storeowners before damages occur.

Enhance field service productivity. Field service organizations are highly process-oriented. Delivering service typically involves a series of steps, from customer call to invoicing, and multiple parties, from dispatcher to billing clerk. Wireless technology can improve the field service process by eliminating or combining steps, thereby increasing the productivity of the entire operation. Companies like Sears and Honeywell use wireless applications to give their field workers access to customer and equipment repair history, increasing the odds that repairs will be concluded in a single visit. By allowing field workers to calculate and present invoices and collect payment on the spot, wireless applications shorten billing cycles and improve cash flow. Pepsi Bottling Group's wireless solution allows field workers to update and access parts inventory in real time to ensure that inventory levels are adequate and to match the right technician with the right parts to the right job. By relying on electronic work orders rather than paper ones, Pepsi Bottling has also eliminated manual processing of over three million forms per year.

Keep tabs on expensive assets. Many valuable assets, from laboratory equipment to cargo and even expensive drugs, are movable or in transit, making it difficult for companies to account for and locate them at all times. These assets are subject to high levels of loss, theft, and damage. Assets that are shipped far distances are often exposed to harsh environmental conditions that can cause harm. By using a combination of location and tracking technology (GPS for wide area coverage and local area networks for in-building or facility coverage) and sensors, tags, or transceivers, companies are able to identify the whereabouts of capital assets and even monitor their condition remotely. American Airlines uses wireless applications to locate dollies and equipment on the airport tarmac. Express Trak LLC safeguards the condition of produce aboard its refrigerated railroad cars by monitoring temperatures, power fluctuations, and fuel levels and making remote adjustments. Georgia Pacific uses wireless sensors to track and check the condition of reusable containers used to deliver fruit and perishables to grocery stores.

Make customer interactions faster and more convenient. Across all industries, companies are experimenting with wireless applications to improve the quality of customer interactions. Airlines like Northwest and United send alerts of flight or gate changes to passengers' wireless devices. Similarly, financial institutions from Fidelity Investments to China Merchants Bank interact wirelessly with customers to let them make stock trades, check account balances, and shift funds. Companies like Avis, Hertz, and the Venetian Hotel are bringing check-in and check-out to the customer, performing transactions anywhere on the premises and preventing long lines and waits. Progressive Insurance equips claims adjusters with mobile and wireless data to expedite claims processing right at accident sites.

Improve the quality and reliability of complex, "on-the-spot" decisions. Many mobile workers have to make complex decisions on the spot with less than full information. They do not have the luxury of access to complete background information, and the amount of relevant information needed to make a sound decision is beyond the recall of even the brightest individual. Wireless applications can connect these workers with the information they need to improve the quality and reliability of decisions. Doctors using UpToDate on their pocket PCs have full access to clinical information to research questions and validate diagnoses while attending to patients. Police organizations across the country, including the Illinois State Police, rely on wireless access to criminal justice data and applications to perform background checks, look up warrants, and complete reports right from their patrol cars. Southwest Gas wirelessly transmits updated maps overnight to trucks parked in the company lot so that field workers will always have access to the most up-to-date information.

Enhance inventory control. Maintaining and tracking inventory, whether coming off the assembly line or residing in warehouses or trucks, is a high-overhead activity. Errors are costly -- the wrong items shipped, restocking charges, dissatisfied customers. Through a combination of bar code generation and scanning and real-time wireless database updates, companies are able to tighten their control over inventory. Avon Products is able to print bar code information and affix it to merchandise coming off the assembly line by using wireless technology in its manufacturing operations. McKesson HBOC has improved inventory counts and control in its warehouses, resulting in more accurate shipments and fewer customer returns. JC Penney uses a wireless application to track in-store merchandise more accurately. Pepsi Bottling Group relies on a wireless application to maintain more accurate truck-based parts inventory. Penske Logistics tracks incoming and outgoing freight that passes through its cross docks, which serve as distribution hubs for its truck fleet, to ensure that the right freight is loaded onto the correct truck.

--Ian Hayes, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium