Xccelerated Mobile Deployment - XMD
PenFact, Inc.
|
|
Professional and Financial Services - Inspection of Cars and Trucks Coming Off Lease Saves 4 Hours a Day per Inspector An Ohio company services automobile manufacturers' financing arms by inspecting cars and trucks when their leases expire. More than 100 inspectors acting as independent contactors are dispersed geographically throughout the Mid-West. Before implementing PenFact's XMD software, these 100+ contractors would daily log onto the internet and print out their schedule for the day and the data relevant to the vehicles that they were to inspect. The inspectors, who get paid on a per vehicle basis, would then spend the day inspecting vehicles, recording all the information by hand on blank photocopies of forms. At the end of the day, the inspectors spent an average of 2 hours cleaning up and finishing the forms. They would them fax the forms to the company. The only copy that the lessee could get was handwritten, and did not reflect later changes to the forms by the inspector and the company. At the company, another two hours per inspector were spent daily reviewing and correcting forms. The forms would them be typed into the company's database, which was used to produce reports to the lessors. The company implemented PenFact's XMD software, with the inspectors using Windows CE handheld PDA's, to which were connected mobile printers. The inspectors download their schedules and forms prepopulated with the data relevant to the vehicles to be inspected. The communications system, which provides for safe, secure data transfer, uses the public internet. The company did not have to spend a penny on communications, as the inspectors can access the company database using their perosnal dial-up accounts. The inspectors save a fortune in telephone charges related to the faxing that they used to do. The inspectors use bar code scanners to scan VIN numbers, eliminating the possibility of recording a bad VIN number, which had occurred regularly in the days of paper. At the end of the day, they no longer have to spend to 2 hours editing and completing the paperwork. They log into the company database over the web, and automatically upload the entire days work. The company benefited by having data with far fewer errors - partly because one cannot enter unreadable characters in XMD software, partly because of the bar code VIN scanning, and partly because the back office typing of the data into the database has been eliminated. That typing was the source of a signficant number of transcription errors. Not only did the company get better data, it was able to virtually eliminate the back office typing for the 100+ inspectors' forms. Moreover, it no longer had to spend two hours a day per inspector reviewing and cleaning up forms. The inspectors are happy,
because they gained two hours a day for which they didn't get paid. The lessees are happy because the inspectors can print out the forms and hand them to the lessees. The company is happy because it cut costs, got better data, implemented a communications system that cost it nothing, and most importantly, produced reports with better quality data, which made its customers happy. Click the Back button on your browser's'
standard toolbar to leave this page
|
|
|
