Volvo Construction Equipment (CE) has deployed mobile data devices to engineers to cut its use of paper and reduce back-office administration.
The industrial and construction vehicles arm of the Volvo Group needed to reduce the time spent by staff on producing invoices.
Engineers can now deliver electronic reports on completed tasks, including complex technical details, in real time, and automatically invoice customers.
Volvo CE is delivering the project in two phases, which began with the deployment of PDAs to 150 mobile engineers to replace paper data collection.
‘This delivers data to a set of control files that are managed by back-office administrators,’ said IT manager Carl Seeger.
‘But they use an intermediate electronic process to transfer data into the service administration system and the second phase is the full automation of this process. We have already seen cost savings from the elimination of paper in the field, and supervisors can see what is going on and where engineers are at all times.’
The Orange M1000 and M2000 PDAs offer controlled, secure access to information, such as job despatch, stock maintenance and visit reports. They can also capture customer images and signatures for invoices.
The devices are provided by Cognito and transmit information through GPRS or by a GSM telephone call if there is no GPRS signal. They give Volvo CE complete secure control over the access users have to voice, email, and browsing applications.
Forrester Research analyst Jenny Lau says the phased approach adopted by Volvo CE is a wise move given the complexity of information the mobile devices are handling.
‘Many mobile applications are still used primarily to manage email or calendar appointments but this a more business-focused approach,’ she said.
What do you think? Email us at feedback@computing.co.uk
Further reading
Volvo studies RFID for tracking
reader comments