The Motorola MC9500-K mobile computer: Re-defining field mobility — even in demanding environments
The challenge: the cost of a disconnected field workforce
The productivity of your field workforce is tied directly to the bottom line of the business — regardless of whether your field teams interact directly with your customers or are focused on maintenance of crucial business infrastructure such as pipelines and cable or telephone networks. If workers do not have access to everything they need to complete the service call on the first visit — from maintenance history to the parts database and equipment schematics — the cost of doing business increases and future sales may be lost. If timely maintenance is not scheduled or multiple truck rolls are required to complete a work order, not only is the cost of day-to-day operations increased, but also infrastructure downtime increases the cost of your products and services — reducing margins and customer satisfaction.
In order to protect the health of your business, your field workers need to operate at peak efficiency — yet they are out in the field, disconnected from the customer and equipment information required to act in real time. Paper forms must be used to collect information for a wide variety of transactions — and that information must then be entered into the computer upon return to the office. As a result, time is inserted into your business processes, creating lag times that reduce service levels, employee productivity, cash flow and overall profitability. The need to touch the data twice increases the opportunity for costly errors that again impact business efficiency. In addition, field workers are forced to phone the office for simple information requests — such as pricing, inventory and invoice information, directions and more — again injecting time and cost into business processes. And if cell phones, standalone GPS devices, cameras and more are utilized out in the field, the enterprise must purchase and manage multiple mobile devices per worker, increasing costs — and life for the field becomes more complex, reducing productivity.
The solution: a real-time field workforce for real business advantage
Field mobility addresses these issues by eliminating the gap between the voice and data networks in the office and your workers out in the field — with just a single device. With an integrated voice and data mobile computer in hand, your workers have what it takes to achieve maximum productivity — the tools required to automate every day processes as well as act in real time. End-to-end field service cycle times are reduced — out in the field as well as for the tangential processes inside your four walls.
