Transport company. Logistics.
How PALM SURE can assist in automating operations of transport companies.
For manufacturing company that supplies its numerous distributors with diverse and, especially, with perishable goods, of critical importance becomes the issue of the real-time-scale transfer of precise information from the consumers, i.e., the so-called feedback, for creating the stock of orders. And if this system makes a slip, then…
A truck with dairy products has returned unloaded back to the milk plant from a shop after an abort mission: person in charge of the shop warehouse has refused to accept the goods and claimed that the original list of ordered dairy products had been quite different. As a result, the sales department staff of the milk grabbed their telephones trying to find alternative buyers for these rejected perishable products, as well as made an attempt to find the guilty party. By making some discounts and using reliable contacts, the goods were sold, but the guilty party was never found. The shop manager claimed that firstly he has ordered the usual list of goods, but than thought better than that and made a telephone call to the milk plant to inform about changes in the order. The person who has accepted this message and failed to channel this information could not be traced. Thus, the traditional feedback scheme failed for the umpteenth time! As soon as any of numerous customers attempted to amend the order, a force-major situation could be expected.
Installation of computer network has somewhat improved this situation was somewhat improved: now the orders from shops were entered into the unified base, the data speedily processed and transferred to the production site. But some discrepancies would still occur: extra zero in the entered quantity would result in the error by an order of magnitude. It happened because operators entered the information without its perception, just punching keys as if it was a mechanical operation. Data check procedure was also quite inadequate: sometimes, a wrong daily order would be sent for the amount of goods ten times higher, than the respective production capacity of the enterprise.
How to minimise the human factor impact on the consumer - manufacturer feedback?
Such possibility is proposed by DigSee company. The latter offers you to take advantage of personal digital assistant (PDA) PALM with the appropriate software Palm_SURE and special software package DigSee SURE for the data processing on the server. Having delivered the goods to the customer, the representative of the supplier with the help of the Palm SURE program enters the customer's order for the following day into the PALM device in the presence and with participation of the customer's authorised representative. The supplier representative can transmit these data either remotely, by using the available means of wireless communication, or simply upload them into the server by placing PALM into the synchronisation cradle upon his (her) returned to the enterprise. The server, "the main data depositary", using the same DigSee SURE software checks up the information integrity. If quantity or other parameters of the ordered goods disagree with the preset minimax borders, the program blocks this order and informs the operator about found error. Thus, all the information obtained is carefully checked and every figure and digit double-checked. The system DigSee SURE enhances formation of daily order stock and makes it possible to avoid the mistakes at the stage of data storage. This, in turn, reduces the production cycle and overhead charges, and improves the profitability.
