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TradeWins ... Pocket a Mobile Solution ( Case Study )

Summary:
A look at the Pocket Price Check ( PPC.GoMobile.ie ) project - Price Check Auditors and Market Surveyors, Handheld Auditing Mobile Barcode Solution. Which employed the Motorola MC5590 Enterprise Digital Assistant barcode scanner with 2mp digital camera for business applications which is one of the latest additions to the very successful Symbol / Motorola MC Range of mobile handheld computers.

Main Contact of Case Study:
TradeWins Ireland ( "The Implementation People" ) have replaced their existing manual auditing system with a innovative, new scalable and effective mobile solution … from conception to delivery, all within a two week period.

TradeWins was established in 1995 to provide storage, fulfilment, distribution and placement of POS for Marketing Managers and Brand teams. These provisions include offering TradeWins clients integrated field marketing coverage.

In March 2009 TradeWins Ireland's MD and Co-Founder Art McGann sought a method by which TradeWins could further enhance their existing service offering by reducing labour and there by costs while adopting a more technologically driven solution to in-store product price checking (aka 'Auditing').

While the choice of abandoning the traditional paper based approach to auditing was the right choice; there was a paramount concern in relation to the overall speed, accuracy and simplicity with which it would be critical to the TradeWins auditors. With this in mind, TradeWins selected the development team to drive the project forward. Tasc Software was selected on the basis of a proven track record and a simplistic end user approach to mobile computing that TradeWins required. The target was to replace the manual system with a mobile solution from concept to delivery within two weeks.

Eugene McLaughlin, Operations Manager for TradeWins explains,

"Recently, our clients outlined a requirement for more frequent in-stock price check auditing results and to have these results reported back to them on demand. Working on a limited budget, TradeWins began the process of seeking to replace the existing paper based manual system which is a visual product inspection and variance recording system."

"These clients has a very strict set of requirements, capture the data in less time while maintaining a high level of accuracy which they had become accustom too. Then report the results back more frequently and more accurately (where possible) than the existing system."

"The existing audit process begins with a catalogue of the client products, often numbering in the thousands, all the related product data, product descriptions and expected retail pricing. The in-store auditor would locate the product stocking kit unit (SKU) barcode, manually retrieve the related data from a diverse portfolio of products available in that store and validate the information displayed with the expected values for that product and finally record any variances found. This process would then repeated again with the shelf edge label (SEL)."

"These products are normally grouped into a product categories which are geographically and strategically located in a number of possible store locations with a number of trolley lanes throughout the store. As you can imagine, the procedure of located all the products for one client at a time, where there can be many thousands of competing products across a number of different clients throughout the entire store can be a time consuming process which requires an investment in labour and product knowledge."

"Such manual systems are often labour intensive and as a result are open to incorrect product selection or documentation type errors. At first, the prospect looked near impossible when you consider the clients window for delivery was as narrow as two weeks. TradeWins needed to deliver to the client, a solution which would be designed, developed, tested, accepted, deployed and fully operational with in-store auditors within the same two week period."

"As we ( TradeWins ) needed the entire process to become more efficient, less time consuming and more accurate and thereby reduce costs, it was obvious that the introduction to the workflow of mobile computing and barcode readers would form key elements within the overall final solution."

"As the implementation people, TradeWins set about considering the possibilities. We considered in-house development of a mobile solution using off-the-shelf rapid application development 3rd party tools such as 'Tracer Plus' and 'MobiForms', but dismissed such tools as they can not offer a limitless level of flexibility and future scalability to match our client current and future requirements and these tools still require a level of technical knowledge which is particular to the selected tool."

"We quickly narrowed our vision on a ground-up development which would allow us to think outside the box, however this approach would also require a large investment in resources, proven knowledge and lead time to delivery which put this option well outside a practical solution. It was felt, that what was required was an existing source of proven knowledge and experience combined with existing resource which had practical business process expertise in the areas of bar-coding, data capture and mobile software development."

"Having reviewed a number of offerings from mobile software development houses in the UK and Ireland with a presents on the internet, we narrowed our focus to a single Irish based prospect. The prospect offered a number of existing mobile solutions which shared some key similarities with those of our requirements. We had finally narrowed our focus to www.GoMobile.ie which is the technical services website for Tasc Software mobile application developers."

"In consultation with Tasc Software, it was quickly identified that the pre-existing 'ScanAndSend' and 'CheckIT' mobile solutions shared a number of elements in common with our Price Check and Auditing requirements. The approach taken by Tasc to bring together these elements into a single product re-enforced our confidence. Tasc Software's clear enthusiasm and confidence to address and meet the challenges of our requirements within the narrow development window, was a welcome breath of air."

"As a direct result, TradeWins now have successfully deployed and are operate the 'PocketPriceCheck' solution across our Dublin based clients. TradeWins now intend to extend this greatly enhanced mobile Price Check auditing and reporting service to our other clients across Ireland and the UK as we move the service forward."

"We have as a direct result, already seen many benefits from using 'PocketPriceCheck' especially from the withdrawal of much of the high costs related with capturing data manually and the labour normally required and associated with the manual paper based system. We have also have noted a much higher level of accuracy and improvements in efficacy from our auditors than projected, who can now communicate their results back to the master database server from any field location, on demand."

"The results have given TradeWins a real competitive reporting edge and more importantly enhanced our service to our clients while increasing service value, client satisfaction and reducing costs. The customer now receives data more frequently but without any increase to the bottom line." Eugene McLaughlin said.

"Tasc Software have launched 'PocketPriceCheck' for us on the new Motorola (formally 'Symbol') MC5590 enterprise digital assistant which can utilise a 2mb digital camera or 1D laser scanner as a barcode reader. Tasc have also offered us the solution on other enterprise mobile devices and platforms including windows mobile tablet PCs, waist or wrist wearable PDAs and Smartphone's."

Eugene believes that the fact that the 'PocketPriceCheck' solution sits on the Windows Mobile platform it offers a real flexible advantage for small to medium sized businesses as well as large businesses like TradeWins, "The platform opens a world of mobile devices and allows mobile integration with our back office applications and reporting systems like MSExcel with great ease. This also make's implementation much easier and more practical than a manual based system while enforcing a step-by-step business process much simpler and more intuitively for auditors whom perhaps some may not have historically had a mobile computing background."

"Perhaps one of the most helpful areas we encountered, was the nuggets of practical on the shop floor wisdom, tips and tricks of mobile computing that Tasc Software choose to employ in their applications which really allowed the workflow to operate naturally and at full potential. As a direct result, we had witnessed major improvements in easy of operation and general application speed and performance as we quickly moved through version upgrades towards final deployment."

"I found the Tasc Software Technical Development and Support team to be an excellent source of support and guidance, the experience, expertise and knowledge shared with us has ensured the correct interpretation of our requirements and has resulted in success during such a critically short delivery period and has resulted in a very successful collaboration and conclusion for our Price Check requirements, in-store auditors and most importantly our corporate retail clients.

To read more about Software Development Projects by Tasc Software, please Click Here!

Other Related articles:
Motorola's MC55xx - A barcode scanning mobile office?
Mobile Development ... Concept to Delivery within 2 weeks
My Personal View of the Motorola MC Range of Mobile Devices
Fitting MicroSDs to the New MC55xx range
PocketPriceCheck

Related downloads:
TradeWins ... Pocket a Mobile Solution ( PDF - Case Study )
MC5590 Leaflet
MC5574 Leaflet

Related websites:
Mobile.GoMobile.ie
TradeWins Ireland
Motorola