Wireless Supply Chain Innovation: How Do You Compare?

Written by: Mike Monocello

In April, I had the honor of being one of three judges for Motorola’s North American and Latin American (NALA) channel partners Enterprise Mobility Solutions Awards. Like Business Solutions’ own Channel Innovator awards, the winners stood apart due to creativity, deep knowledge of their core technologies, and project execution.

Lowry Computer Products (No stranger to BSM, having been featured six times in the last nine years. Click here for the latest article on government contracts) took home the prize for its implementation of the first state-level food traceability system in the United States with the State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture and the Hawaii Farm Bureau.

The official Motorola press release reads, “In recent years, consumer safety and confidence have been shaken by pathogen-based outbreaks within the food chain that have led to recalls, illnesses and in some cases, deaths. The State of Hawaii initiated an RFID (radio frequency identification)-based track-and-trace program that will display real-time produce movement and enable growers to monitor the complete harvest to market process. Lowry Computer Products devised and deployed a fail-safe system that utilized Motorola MC9090-G RFID handheld mobile computers and XR440 fixed RFID readers to identify and pull contaminated products before reaching the consumer. The program is expected to increase food safety response and mitigate losses associated with crop disease, food recalls, and other food safety issues.”

Motorola also gave out a second award to Spring Wireless and Deloitte. The two were named recipients of the NALA Partner Ecosystem Award for the most innovative enterprise mobility solution developed collaboratively by two or more partners.

Motorola’s description of the winning solution: “Spring Wireless and Deloitte were honored for their implementation of a mobile field sales, field services and distribution solution utilizing Motorola MC70 mobile computers at Anheuser-Busch InBev in Brazil and Belgium. The Spring Wireless-Deloitte enterprise mobility solution has helped improve cash flow, increase direct store delivery (DSD) productivity, and reduce data entry errors and administrative paperwork. The real-time automated data capture functionality dramatically increased the productivity of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s DSD function and provided a return on their investment in only six months. By eliminating manual paperwork processes, driver productivity increased 10 percent enabling each driver to make a minimum of one additional stop per day. Since drivers frequently sell additional products beyond the order at delivery time, the additional stop provided a nine percent increase in actual sales. In addition, now that the bar codes of delivered product are scanned and the lot numbers are captured, Anheuser-Busch Inbev is prepared for quick and easy traceability of the product right to the customer in the event of a recall.”

On behalf of Business Solutions magazine, congratulations to the winners! If you think you’ve got an innovative solution worth mentioned, let us know and you could be featured in Business Solutions magazine.