March/April 2005

Geographers A-Z Map Company has gone live with a mobile computing solution for its 28-strong field sales team, and says that among other benefits, it has reduced the time to process orders from five days to an hour.

The system has been supplied by systems integrator Sandpiper Corporation, and features hardware by Intermec and software by Asyst.

Mobile representatives have all been equipped with Intermec 760 touch-screen handheld terminals, and have had cab-mounted A4 printers fitted in their vans. These are rugged Intermec 6820 A4-sized dot-matrix models.

When making deliveries to retail outlets, staff use the terminals to check off deliveries against orders, and can also amend orders if, for instance, the recipient makes an additional ad hoc purchase from stock carried on the van.

 

Details are relayed to A-Z's back-office system by GPRS connection in near-real time, saving the need for the system to updated retrospectively. Map sales director Stephen Barbor says this means the time taken to process orders has been cut down from days to hours. It has also allowed the company to re-deploy two clerical staff, saving them from the task of routine order entry.