Contact: Alliant Systems 909 Lake Carolyn Parkway, Suite 1150 Irving, TX 75039 Phone (972) 331-5060 Fax (972) 331-5061 Contact: Eric Smith esmith@alliantsystems.net
June 2003
Wander into the offices of Bay Towel & Uniform and you glimpse what many believe is the future of route delivery. Route salespeople (RSPs) still return to a check-in room at the completion of their runs each day, but it's certainly not business as usual.
Armed with personal digital assistants (handheld PDAs) and SmartRoute software (developed by IPC Systems, Irving, Tex.), the RSPs at this Green Bay, Wis. company dock their handheld devices and electronically transmit signed invoices, soil counts, and other delivery-related information to the office. What was once a clerical and error-prone process that used to take upwards of 45 minutes per route each day is now completed in just a few minutes.
"We've kind of positioned ourselves as ahead of the curve in our industry as far as innovation and technology goes," says Mike Denis, controller at Bay Towel. "Use of the handhelds fits right in with that. Our customers have reacted very favorably. They like them because of the elimination of manual adjustments. That's a big issue. With handhelds, they get a neater, cleaner invoice."
To date, IPC Systems has deployed approximately 200 handhelds on the routes in some 20 textile service companies using both the Casio EG-800 and the Dell Axim PDA products. Both devices run Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. A custom-designed neoprene case is used to protect the devices and can be tethered to the RSP using a belt clip.
"SmartRoute was designed to simulate and simplify the activities of the RSP while on the route and during the check-in process," said Jeff Belcher, president of IPC Systems. "Our goal was to provide a tool that enhanced not only the performance but also the image of the RSP. If you think your employees don't see the tools that route personnel in other industries are equipped with, you are mistaken."
"We were familiar with the UPS guys, the FedEx guys, all the people that were coming in with the electronic handheld devices," noted Bob Hagar of Miller Textile Services. "I was looking to eliminate the paperwork coming back to the office. The idea of saving 15 minutes of route time per day was appealing, and saving another 15 minutes each day in the office per route was appealing."
In the route supervisor's office, a laser printer issues a series of reports for a route that just returned to the plant minutes ago. First, an audit trail of all adjustments made on the route is printed for review, eliminating the manual process of sorting through hard-copy invoice forms to identify adjustments.
Second, a list of other account activity such as soil counts, new items added to the account and size change requests is printed. Once reviewed and approved, this information is passed electronically to the office.
Finally, a stop time report is printed that displays the time that each customer signed for their delivery and the order the route was actually delivered in.
As one Miller Textile RSP put it, "It's a lot easier to do paperwork, a lot easier checking in. I don't have near the time spent checking in that I used to. I'll bet it saves me altogether probably a half hour to 45 minutes throughout the whole day."
In the office, SmartRoute eliminates approximately 90% of the manual adjustments made on a typical day as the adjustments have already been electronically entered on the route in front of the customer. Time is spent working with customers, not managing paper trails.
"The handheld to us means fewer errors, less going back and recalculating and issuing credits," said Denis. "The primary benefits are the cost savings and how we present ourselves to our customers. It's a dramatic improvement over the old paper system."
Adjustments made on the route with the handheld are accurate as handhelds do not make errors in calculating sales tax. Other complex transactions, such as ones that require the enforcement of minimum delivery quantities, are completed on the handheld without error.
In addition, the invoice and the customer's signature are now digitally archived, eliminating the need to file and retrieve signed invoice copies. Subsequently, the invoice can be faxed or emailed to the customer automatically or upon request without anyone ever leaving their desk.
"A really nice thing is that we can provide customers with ranges of invoices very easily," said Denis. "If a customer wants an invoice from six months ago, it's there. If a customer wants six months worth of invoices, it's there."
Training typically consists of two days to install the system and train office and route personnel. Several RSPs test the product on the route for a short period of time prior to implementation on additional routes.
"We could have implemented handhelds much quicker than we did, simply because there isn't that much training required," noted Denis. "You can sit down with a guy for a couple of days at the end of the day and go through his manual paperwork and show him how he would have done that day's work on the handheld, and that's about all that's required. Another benefit is you really cut down dramatically on training time for new hires in the route department."