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Mobile
Success Story:
Clare Rose Inc.
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Since
rolling out Xplore rugged Tablet PCs, Clare Rose has
saved both money and 8,700+ labor hours over the course of
a year.
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Clare
Rose began as a small soda water distributing firm in 1936. Today
Clare Rose, which is still privately held, is one of the top wholesale
distributors for Anheuser-Busch.
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| Public
Corporation |
| Stock
Symbol: XPL |
| Operating
Systems Served: Windows Tablet PC Edition |
| Markets
Served: General Enterprise, Agriculture, Construction,
Emergency Services, Environmental Services, Field Service,
Healthcare, Military, Public Safety / Law Enforcement,
Security, Supply Chain (Manufacturing, Warehousing), Transportation,
Utilities |
| 2005
Mobile Star Awards™
Winner: |
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Situation
In 1981 Clare Rose started using handheld computing devices with
small screens and briefcase printers. In 2003 Clare Rose began investigating
alternative solutions. They were being driven by the need to capture
more information and meet the requirements of new mandates from
Anhesuer-Busch. One of those requirements was to do a survey of
Displays and Taps that Anhesuer-Busch requires to be completed routinely
on customer accounts. In addition, Clare Rose wanted the ability
to track sales objective executions on a tablet PC. Lastly, Clare
Rose wanted to better equip its driver salesmen to service its customers.
These driver salesmen conduct several activities at the customer
sites including inventory, sales and delivery, merchandising, and
surveys.
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Solution
Xplore tablets are now utilized to record customer inventory, view
open invoices, take orders, print invoices and take payment from customers
on site. The driver salesmen can change information on accounts in
the field. That information is stored on the computer and the system
is updated at the end of the day when the sales people return to the
office. The driver salesmen can track code dates on product in order
to make sure that inventory is rotated properly. Clare Rose's solution
also incorporates a mobile printer that communicates wirelessly with
the iX104 Tablet PC. |
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Benefits
According to Gary Neumen the deployment has been a success. The
iX104 is easier to use and is more intuitive. "It was relatively
easy to train our supervisors and driver salesmen," says Neumen.
The Xplore product enables Clare Rose to do more than the previous
handheld devices. The Windows platform along with the MiT Systems
software on the iX104 computer presents a more professional image
to their customer. Neumen estimates that they save an estimated
½ hour per day on each route at customer sites by using their
new mobile computing system versus using the old style handheld
device; that translates into over 8,700 labor hours saved each year.
Clare
Rose is also experiencing savings with regard to the customer surveys
required by Anhesuer-Busch. Before the deployment, Clare Rose would
have to complete surveys on paper and then bring those surveys back
to the office to be recorded into their database by another person.
Now the survey is completed electronically in the field so there
is no double entry of information. In addition, the accuracy of
the survey has increased because the information is being entered
once.
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