Fruit Grower Only Picks Quality - In Fruit And Mobile Terminals

This case study from Honeywell takes a look at Gerawan Farms, a grower-packer-shipper of apricots, nectarines, plums, peaches, and grapes that produces the Prima brand, known around the world for its quality and consistency. Gerawan Farms was experiencing a bottleneck at the tallying of packed boxes out in the fields, with data being recorded manually on paper, and then later entered into the host application. Similar manual processes during package inspection and inventory tracking being done at a separate facility were also not at ideal levels.

Gerawan was already a user of radio frequency (RF) technology throughout their facilities, but they wanted the perfect handheld for the noted applications. Gerawan’s application developer preferred a handheld running the Microsoft® Windows® Mobile operating system because it could run the current in-house applications, developed using QuickBase API by Intuit. Beyond that, the equipment needed to be lightweight, easy to use, and able to function in Gerawan’s expansive fields.

Gerawan’s search led them to LXE’s MX8 compact hand-held computer running Microsoft® Windows® Mobile 6.1 on an XScale processor with one-dimensional scanning. “The cost was an important factor, but we also liked the ruggedness and feel,” says Diego Mendoza, Gerawan’s application developer. “It also has a wonderful antenna on it. We asked for a demo product, and we were able to get good signal out on the ranch a quarter of a mile away from the access point. That was key.”

To read more about the use of the MX8 at the Gerawan facility and an additional application they use the handhelds for, download this case study from the link below.