In this economy, employers and companies must get the utmost “bang for their buck.” Devoting any part of the budget to unnecessary expenses and not getting back a return on investments cannot be justified. Luckily, mobile printers help these employers and companies make the most of their operations and employee productivity.

Something as simple as spending a few minutes each day walking to and from stationary printers is the type of thing that stalls productivity, as Greece retailer Jumbo discovered. After equipping employees with DecisionPoint’s mobile printers, Jumbo learned that its employees saved between 45 and 90 minutes per day in walking, making them 80 percent more productive than before. And they’re not the only ones.

Another retailer discovered that employees across 50 of its stores spent an average of 30 minutes a day walking back and forth to retrieve labels and wait for them at a busy printer. Multiply those 30 minutes by the frequent price changes and it comes to 180 wasted hours per store. Not only is this unproductive, it’s also very costly. In fact, those 180 wasted hours added up to more than $90,000 annually in salaries that were generating no return on the investment.

One technology manufacturer had a stationary printer for printing put-away labels just one aisle away from the put-away location — nine steps away to be exact. Yet, utilizing DecisionPoint’s mobile printers still allowed put-away transactions to be completed 62 percent faster. Since time is money, these increases in productivity can have a significant impact on your company’s bottom line.

 Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about Zebra’s wireless mobile printers and how they can increase productivity and lower costs.

Our August 17 post introduced the topic of Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB)—also known as OneCode and the 4-State Barcode.  IMB replaces the postal POSTNET and PLANET barcodes and will be required starting this fall for companies looking to receive the maximum USPS automation discounts.

Motorola offers several imagers capable of decoding the new IMB symbology.  One model is the DS9808 digital imager scanner.  This scanner features a hybrid form factor for both handheld and hands-free scanning modes. Its latest scanning technology enables it to support 1D and 2D omnidirectional bar code scanning and sub-second image capture, as well as the ability to capture images and signatures.

Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about the line of imager scanners that can decode the IMB sysmbology. 

Past posts have featured specifications and videos of the Motorola MC55 and MC75.  More recently, our September 11 post described ruggedness testing.  In today’s video, you won’t see a boring demonstration of standardized drop tests.  Instead you’ll see Motorola’s MC9000 subjected to extreme abuse and continue to function flawlessly!   Now that’s rugged!  

Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about the Motorola line of rugged Enterprise Digital Assistants (EDA).

Let’s face it, when you begin to consider the introduction of mobile technology into your enterprise; most of us first look at hardware.  After all, you can hold it and interact with it (press keys and view the colorful display).  While selecting the correct feature set of hardware (laser or imager, large keys or full alpha numeric) is important, your selection of mobile application software may play an even larger role in the acceptance, success and ROI of your mobile solution.

When considering mobile application software, there are three primary software options:

1. Purchase a pre-built “off the shelf” application.  A major advantage of “off the self” applications is that they are generally lower risk in that they have a previous installed base and someone else has worked out the bugs.  As a rule, these applications are quick to implement and many are now available on a subscription-based Software as a Service (SaaS) model.  The disadvantage to these applications is that they require you to change your business process to conform to the application.  For many companies, their business process is what makes them unique in the marketplace and as such is a competitive differentiator that cannot be compromised.
2. Purchase a mobile development tool and build to suit.  There are a number of companies that provide mobile development environments or “platforms” for the purpose of reducing the complexity of mobile application development.  These platforms provide many of the common mobile application feature sets and an interface to tie them together.  The advantage of these platforms is that they reduce some of the time and risk associated with development from the ground up efforts by providing pre-built and tested features that the developer can leverage.  The trade-off for such ease of use is that often the developer is limited to the features that the platform can provide.  Thus, understanding your business requirements in advance is fundamental to selecting the appropriate platform for your needs.
3. Purchase a purpose-built custom application.  Custom built applications provide the greatest flexibility in meeting your business needs.  This approach enables you to build mobile applications that directly support your business processes. When interviewing custom mobile developers, look for those that have significant mobile development experience as they are often able to leverage previous development efforts thus reducing the time and risk associated with new development efforts.  Also, the more experience they have in your particular industry the better understanding they will have of your vocabulary and processes thus improving the quality of the final deliverable.

Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about these mobile software  choices and which approach is best for your enterprise.

Last week, DecisionPoint announced the launch of its MobileCare™ support services program, a customized suite of service offerings designed to maximize the value of our customers’ mobile systems.  MobileCare™ offerings include:

• Technical Support: troubleshooting assistance for mobile computing, printing and wireless networking issues.
• Software Support: extend life of your valuable software investment by ensuring your software applications continue to function properly.
• Remote Device Management: remotely troubleshoot problems, provide software and security updates, remotely disable lost or stolen devices and more.
• Express Depot: spare pool of pre-configured mobile devices
• Manufacturer Maintenance: support agreements  from manufacturers offered through DecisionPoint

Click each offering title to go to the offering page on the DecisionPoint website. You can also read the press release here.

Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about MobileCare™.

The success of field mobility depends on several factors, including an employee’s ability to meet a customer’s needs quickly, accurately and confidently. Wireless mobile printers are a vital component to achieving this success in field mobility.

Because wireless mobile printers save employees time when preparing invoices, they can cut several minutes off of each delivery, which allows employees to service more customers in a given day. This is exactly what happened to one gas delivery company when they saved three to four minutes on each delivery by using mobile printers rather than manually preparing invoices.

This wireless, mobile technology also gives route sales professionals access to important customer information, which means that they can not only quickly settle discrepancies, but also encourage additional purchases and suggest complementary items to fully meet the customers’ needs. Wireless networking can also deliver drivers’ work schedules and routes without them having to wait in a line to speak with a dispatcher, allowing them to begin their routes earlier than competitors who do not use wireless mobile technology.

Mobile printers also have a physically comfortable element that helps field service employees when they’re on the job. Carrying around heavy equipment can tire out employees, leading to minimized efforts and increased risk of error. By contrast, mobile printers are lightweight, allowing employees to stay alert and focus on the sale as well as the customer’s unique needs, maintaining the level of swift service and trustworthy expertise that helps your company stand out.

 Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about Zebra’s wireless mobile printers and how they can increase productivity.

In our September 16 post, we shared the news that Motorola just released the MC9500, an industrial-class addition to the best-selling Motorola MC9000 series.

Now we have just learned the carrier certification dates:

• AT&T: September 21
• Sprint: September 21
• Verizon: September 23

Once a chipset is certified by the FCC and the PTCRB (PCS Type Certification Review Board), T-Mobile does not require further certification to run on their network.

Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about the state-of-the art Motorola MC9500 Enterprise Digital Assistant (EDA) .

The MCAA/NTLA Executive Roundtable Series 2009 will be held at the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa in Scottsdale September 29 - October 1.

The Messenger Courier Association of America (MCAA) is an association for the messenger courier industry while the National Transportation & Logistics Association (NTLA) is comprised of last mile couriers, shippers and suppliers along the supply chain.

The conference is designed to aid those in the courier and expedited delivery industries by addressing industry trends, tougher government regulations and compliance changes as well as sales and marketing strategies designed to increase business.

If you’re attending the conference, be sure to look for DecisionPoint.  You can find us at Booth 23. 

Let’s get mobile! Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about our courier and expedited delivery mobile solutions.

In order for field mobility to be truly effective, mobile printers must be brought in to help streamline the payment process. Mobile printers do so by cutting down on the lengthy and unnecessary wait times often associated with payment processing in favor of a simpler, automated payment process that translates into a much more condensed cash-to-cash cycle time.

When it comes to preparing an invoice, writing everything in by hand is a time-consuming that can be wrought with costly errors. Wireless mobile technology reduces that time so that employees spend as little at 2 percent of their time on the task – not to mention the computerized process greatly reduces the possibility of human error.

Once the invoice is prepared, tradition dictates that it is physically taken to an accounts receivable department for processing, but wireless mobile printing eliminates the hours/days this could take by allowing employees to submit invoices electronically instead. What’s more, mobile printing also allows employees to process a customer’s credit card payment instantly on the device itself, equipped with a magnetic strip to read the credit card.

Streamlining this payment process allows employees to spend more time focused on servicing customers and their needs, rather than the lengthy, tedious payment process. Thus mobile printers shorten the payment process to yield a benefit that is three-fold:

1. Enhances convenience for customers and improves their satisfaction
2. Reduces the possibility of costly human error and opportunities for double-billing
3. Improves companies’ cash flow and overall profitability.

 Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about Zebra’s wireless mobile printers and how they can help you streamline your payment processing.

In yesterday’s post, we shared the news of Motorola’s announcement of the MC9500, an industrial-class addition to the best-selling Motorola MC9000 series.  In today’s post, you can learn more about the state-of-the art design of the MC9500 in the below video.

Contact DecisionPoint Systems, Inc. to learn more about the Motorola MC9500 Enterprise Digital Assistant—the next step in the evolution of mobile computing.