Tracking Shipments On The Move

In the competitive business of air freight, technology has been an advantage for Eagle USA, the Houston-based freight forwarder. The company has terminals in 45 U.S. cities, more than 1,000 employees and gross sales of services of about $175 million. Eagle focuses on shipments of more than 70 pounds. Eagle has built a base of more than 4,000 customers, including Nike, Ford, General Motors and Compaq, by providing good customer service and error-free shipping at a fair price.

Managing Thousands Of Shipments
According to Kevin Hicks, a project manager, Eagle was among the first in its industry to realize that logistics could best be managed through technology. Eagle must track each shipment from shipper to air transportation to truck to customer and to various distribution hubs in between. The company must then obtain proof of delivery. This operation required a unique identifier that can be easily produced and attached to each shipment, then scanned at each stop along the route to the final destination.

VAR Provides Technology Solution
To accomplish this, Eagle partnered with an Austin, Texas-based VAR named Data Recognition, who specializes in bar code and logistics solutions. The challenge was to provide a system which would allow Eagle truck drivers to scan every item of every shipment and communicate that information back to the Eagle host computer. It also had to allow Eagle to communicate vital delivery and status information back to the drivers. In addition, the technology had to be easy to use, foolproof, and sufficiently rugged to handle rough handling.

Symbol Product Used In The Solution
Data Recognition selected the PPT 4600 pen-based computer from Symbol Technologies as the cornerstone for its freight-tracking solution. The handheld, ruggedized pen computer integrates a Symbol bar-code-laser scan engine, a 486 computer, and a wide-area data communications network.

Data Recognition developed the software for the PPT 4600 to permit the drivers to perform their tasks as easily as possible. It features prompts which guide the drivers through screens of information. The software also communicates to the Eagle host computer, an IBM AS 400, located at Eagle's headquarters in Houston, via the Microsoft Windows NT operating system.

Step-By-Step: How The System Works
Here's how the system works:

• A driver is dispatched to pick up freight at the airport. He receives information on his PPT 4600, which resides in a cab-mounted cradle. The information follows a route from the Eagle host computer, over a RAM Mobile Data Network, to an Ericsson modem in the cab-mounted cradle and then to the PPT 4600.
• The driver scans each bar-coded item with the swivel-scan head on the device. That information is automatically batched and transmitted back to the host computer.
• The host then communicates pick up and delivery information, such as directions to the next destination, back to the driver. When a delivery is made, the driver makes a final scan, and the customer acknowledges receipt by pen-signing on the PPT 4600. The signature and shipment completion information are time stamped and transmitted back to the host computer. That proof-of-delivery is then faxed back to the shipper, while the driver is on the way to the next destination.