Businesses adopt mobile IT to improve their efficiency and
empower staff. Helen Beckett and John Kavanagh look at companies
where practice matches up with the best of theory
RFID tracking speeds up checkouts
The use of radio frequency ID tags to track stock can transform
retailers' supply chains and consumers' shopping experiences.
German retail giant Metro has rolled out RFID to two Metro Cash
& Carry stores, five Galeria Kaufhof department stores and 11
Real hypermarkets since November 2004.
Metro piloted RFID in its showcase Future Store initiative in
Rheinberg, Germany, and noted its impact throughout the supply
chain. "It is reducing stock errors and streamlining our supply
chain by providing a greater visibility in the supply chain," says
Gerd Wolfram, project manager for the initiative.
Tags operate at 13.56MHz and have a range of up to 1.5 metres. They
can be read by RFID multimedia kiosks around the store, so
customers can simply swipe a CD or DVD to select a preview of the
album or film they are considering purchasing.
"RFID basically provides a 'contactless ID'," explains Markus
Luidolt, project manager for Philips, supplier of the microchip
smart tags to Future Store. Individual items can be tracked from
the moment they are loaded on a pallet at a distribution centre to
the moment the anti-theft tag is removed at the till.
The store manager in Rheinberg can track each shipment through the
store warehouse information system, knowing which products to
expect and when they are due to arrive. When the pallets arrive at
the store, another scan reveals if any of the cases are missing,
eliminating the need to check each pallet and physically count the
shipment.
Customers too are enjoying the benefits of the greater information
that the RFID provides, according to research carried out at the
store. Once in the store, the chief advantage over the traditional
barcode swipe method of tracking inventory and security is that
manual scanning is eliminated. Instead, RFID antennas installed at
checkouts automatically identify garment categories plus details
such as where the item was manufactured and the batch number.
A key aspect of better stock control though RFID is the creation of
"smart shelves" that can provide real-time inventory. "An RFID
reader sends a message to the store back-office system when stocks
are running low, and restocking on demand avoids sales losses due
to empty shelves," says Luidolt. In addition, expiry date control,
generation of sales data and the location of misplaced items are
all handled by the smart shelf system.
RFID scanning is performed 10 times faster than barcode methods,
which can deliver an 11% reduction in labour costs. Meanwhile,
theft of goods has fallen by between 11% and 18% in stores.
PDAs are winners for waste disposal
LondonWaste has invested in virtual private networks that connect
over GPRS and enable roaming executives to access their e-mail
remotely and securely.
In one fell swoop, remote e-mail access has made the company more
efficient, improved the productivity of executives and increased
customer satisfaction, according to Mark Beattie, head of IT at
LondonWaste.
Unlike the fast-moving consumer goods sector, where predictions can
be made about patterns of demand and decisions about where to
allocate resources, "waste is the last thing on people's minds,"
says Beattie. This results in calls to the business from people who
need to get rid of two tons of fluorescent lighting, for example,
at short notice.
The industry operates on a day-to-day basis with managers in the
field having to make instant decisions about pricing a contract and
shifting waste. There are also stringent regulations to comply
with, such as the amount of time that waste may stay on a
site.
Not having access to e-mail out in the field was a big disadvantage
because office staff had to verbally summarise documents to
managers who were travelling, explains Beattie. With the remote
e-mail installed as part of the Orange Office Freedom suite and
accessed from the Treo 600 handsets, managers can now view original
Word or Excel documents.
The e-mail is set up so it is pushed to the device from the server.
Despite the disadvantages of using a wireless network that is
optimised for voice calls for a data application, GPRS has done the
job for LondonWaste. "3G was not available when we launched. But it
is a slim application and GPRS has not let us down," says Beattie.
GPRS even provides coverage in remote corners of the UK.
LondonWaste tried laptops installed with 3G data cards for its
salesforce but the experience of getting data speeds no better than
dial-up "was not always so satisfactory", says Beattie. "Our
roaming executives do not want to take laptops with them."
The beauty of PDAs is that they are synchronised with the office
calendar and contact lists, so you can be up totheminute in the
field. "We can give them a PDA that is also a phone, which fits
into their car kits.
Another key concern for the business was to reduce the cost of
fines levied on the company when its vehicles use routes that are
not allocated to the company for waste collection. LondonWaste
installed Fleetlink, an in-vehicle, telemetry-based product
supplied by Orange.
Every time a vehicle passes an Orange base station, it records the
fact and sends a log back to base. By using all these location
sightings it is possible to plot accurately where a vehicle is and
ensure - and demonstrate - that the fleet of 32 waste collection
vehicles keeps to allocated routes.
LondonWaste has also used the fleet tracking telemetry to optimise
the reuse and recycling centres it manages on behalf of local
authorities. When the giant containers at the sites are full, the
centre would normally need to be shut for health and safety reasons
while they are replaced. However, the transport manager can now
easily locate and divert a truck to make the switch quickly.
The tariffs for these slimline wireless applications are relatively
cheap. LondonWaste gets a discount because it is half-owned by
refuse company Sita UK. However, Fleetlink is charged per unit,
plus a monthly subscription and a charge for each text sent.
"Waste is not a glamorous business," says Beattie, and it was
perhaps this stark truth that made it easy for him to implement the
minimal solution that has made such a big difference to the
company.
The lawyers who work anywhere
Staff at Scotland's biggest law firm can use all its systems and
work on all their documents regardless of whether they are in the
office, at home or in an internet cafe.
"People can access anything as if they were working on the local
area network in the Glasgow or Edinburgh offices," says David
Murphy, IT director at MacRoberts, a specialist in business and
employment law.
"They can use the document management and practice management
systems, deal with e-mail and send dictation: they have digital
handsets and can download their dictation to their laptops to send
back for secretaries to work on.
"If the IT staff need to do software upgrades or installations out
of hours they can work comfortably at home rather than staying at
the office late into the evening."
Mobile working was introduced both to meet lifestyle aspirations
and to enable lawyers travelling the world or away at a tribunal
for a few days to work on their cases or keep up with other client
affairs.
They can work at home, from hotel rooms or via wireless links while
on the move. They do not even need their own laptops as they can
use internet TV systems now offered by some hotels, or public
internet cafes, despite the confidential nature of their
work.
Security is based on a user name, a password and a keyfob which
displays a code that changes every 30 seconds and is synchronised
with the central systems. The code has to be keyed in to gain
access.
Virtual private network boxes and software from Whale
Communications at the Glasgow head office manage the online
sessions - and also automatically clear the cache memory in public
computers, for example in internet cafes, after an online session
so that the next user cannot see information from the
session.
"The one-off capital cost of the Whale products, including
interfaces to our Interwoven document management system and Pilgrim
practice management system, was around £27,000, which was not a
huge amount, considering the productivity and lifestyle benefits,"
Murphy says.
No place like home
Mobile working is even more important to Bellwether Enterprises.
The railway safety consultancy has no offices at all. Its 24 people
are based at home and do all their work remotely from each other,
even when they are working in teams.
This arrangement was the idea of technical director Graeme
Lloyd-Roberts, a single father with children aged 12 and 13. He
wanted work flexibility - and it has brought benefits to the
company.
Staff have Sony Vaio laptops and broadband links to their homes,
and they also work while on the move. They each have a Draytek VPN
box at home, in effect giving the company as a whole a private
network via the internet. IT and website hosting is handled by
services company Cobweb Solutions at its datacentre.
In addition Bellwether has its own data storage server: an old PC
with some extra Maxstor disc drives at Lloyd-Roberts' house.
Overheads are lower, and the best staff can be recruited,
regardless of where they live, Lloyd-Roberts says. Bellwether has
staff across England and in Australia.
Flexible working has expanded the company's market. "I can work
with our US clients after my children have gone to bed," says
Lloyd-Roberts. "Sometimes time zone differences can actually be a
benefit."
Technology helps to give staff a feeling of working together, says
Lloyd-Roberts. "We have Yahoo Messenger and Windows Messenger and
when you log on it is like arriving at the office. You can see who
is in, text people, and talk via a headset. You can check other
people's diaries to fix a meeting.
"Sometimes we work in teams, and we use voice conferencing and
RealVNC software, which allows one person's computer to be seen by
everyone else. Anyone can enter text to edit a document, so it gets
done immediately. In some ways it is better than a traditional
meeting."
This way of working suits some people but not others, Lloyd-Roberts
says. "Some people seem unable to function without going to the
office: they miss everyone. We have taken on some people who have
been really miserable. Other people prefer to work alone - but if
they are too much of a loner they might not be able to
collaborate."
Direct contact is important, Lloyd-Roberts says. He takes staff to
lunch individually at least once a month, and there is a monthly
meeting when everyone gets together.
Taking an axe to admin
A mobile application that lets construction workers receive job
details and order spare parts over the GPRS network has freed up
30% more of their time for actually doing the work.
The application is used by building components supplier Wolseley to
communicate with its trade customers and is supplied by O2. The XDA
II device comes with an in-built camera and client software to
power two applications, receiving and reporting on jobs, and the
ability to photograph and order spare parts.
The image transfer has real benefit for Wolseley because it enables
much more accurate identification of parts. "A central heating
engineer may have to service a boiler that is 20 years old and a
photo is the best way of communicating the spare part required,"
says Tim Pollard, marketing director at Wolseley.
The image transfer also communicates proof that a job is completed
in a fast and secure way. This in turn means that payment is
released by housing authorities faster. "Contractors get paid
quicker and cashflow is a key concern for smaller businesses," says
Pollard.
GPRS is optimised for voice calls, but Wolseley says that its
customers have not reported constraints on image transfer
yet.
"The construction industry has had frightening experiences with
IT," says Pollard. "O2 has put together an application that is
simple to understand and cost. If you have 50 engineers, that means
50 devices and it is costed per device."
This article is part of Computer Weekly's Special report on
enterprise mobility, produced in association with Intel