Improve With Palm Handheld Computer Use

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- What does an aircraft maintenance company in Seattle, an animal control department in Lincoln, Neb., and a residential pool services company in Austin, Texas, have in common? Workers at these organizations all use Palm(TM) handheld computer solutions to improve the efficiencies of remote field operations. Mobile workers in these dramatically different jobs are all able to streamline tasks, capture data, and access corporate information on the go.

Process improvement in field service, a phrase used to describe a remote or mobile service call environment, has become a focal point for organizations as they look to new technologies to help reduce costs and eliminate inefficiencies.

"The immediate and measurable return to the enterprise for mobile field service handheld solutions is compelling, both in financial terms and in organizational efficiency, effectiveness and competitive advantage," said Christopher Fletcher of the Aberdeen Group. "Most solutions paid for themselves in less than 6 months."

"The benefits of outfitting a mobile team with Palm Powered(TM) handhelds are clear," said Todd Bradley, Palm's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "The return on investment can be measured not only in dollars, but also public image, customer relationships and improved operational efficiency."

Below are several mobile field service case studies by organizations using Palm Powered solutions to streamline business processes. To learn more about Palm Powered mobile field service solutions, visit www.palm.com/enterprise.

Goodrich Aerospace Delivers Maintenance Faster

Goodrich Aerospace is a leading supplier of aerospace components, systems and services, and offers third-party maintenance inspection services for commercial airlines. The Aviation Technical Services Division utilizes a mobile field service application on Palm Powered handheld computers. The application, from Perceptive Solutions, Inc., allows Goodrich inspectors to process non-routine aircraft maintenance tasks electronically.

Today, Goodrich maintenance inspectors carry Palm Powered Symbol SPT 1746 handhelds. The mobile hangar application, Handheld NRC, allows inspectors to electronically record non-routine maintenance tasks. Perceptive expects that Goodrich will shorten initial inspection time by 33 percent. The automated process results in greater efficiencies, shortened inspection times and improved maintenance. Additionally, the Palm Powered application interfaces with the company's backend enterprise systems; critical maintenance data is uploaded to the corporate servers. All of this means that the aircraft are put back into production sooner, carrying passengers and generating revenue.

"The benefits of using Perceptive's Palm Powered solution have been immediate relative to improved, more efficient paperwork processes," said Jim Gahagan, senior director of Information and Technology Services, Goodrich Aerospace.

Whirlpool Makes Managing Commercial Laundry Products Easy

Whirlpool's commercial laundry products will soon interact with Palm handhelds to make it easier for owners and operators of laundromats to manage machines. The ADVANTECH(TM) System, which should be widely available by the end of the year, lets owners or route operators collect data and upgrade machine software for commercial laundry equipment by simply pointing a Palm Powered handheld computer at the machine.

A Whirlpool commercial laundry machine owner can determine how frequently their machines are being used, or alter the business, for example, increase the cost for using hot water because of energy shortages and high costs. They can simply make changes on a custom PC program, synchronize the changes to the Palm handheld, and beam them from the IR (infrared) port on the Palm handheld to the machine's electronic panel. Immediately, any cost changes are implemented and usage data is beamed back to the Palm handheld for later analysis.

Centra Health Automates Maintenance of Life Saving Machines

Successfully servicing equipment, especially the precision machines used in health care, takes an organized and efficient approach. Centra Health Inc. is a community health care system that includes two hospitals in Lynchburg, Va. -- Virginia Baptist and Lynchburg General. Centra Health's Clinical Engineering Department is responsible for the monitoring, calibration and servicing of approximately 12,000 hospital devices, ranging from x-ray machines to copiers.

Centra Health needed to accurately track the maintenance of hospital equipment without relying on hand-written notes or a technician's memory. PC laptops were considered, but were found to be too expensive and impractical. Centra Health partnered with Sussex Systems in implementing their innovative HandHeld WorkOrders product for Palm Powered handheld computers.

In 1999, Centra Health partnered with Sussex Systems to develop a system that runs as an application on Palm handhelds, with an intranet interface to a Lotus Domino database. The system synchronizes with the existing mainframe work-orders database using IBM's MQ-series(TM). Centra Health reports that "technicians have processed over 10,000 transactions this year, achieved a 7 percent productivity improvement and a 10 percent increase in documented procedures. In addition, Centra benefits from a daily savings in technician time resulting from the automation of the reporting process."

Palm Handhelds Replace Paper for Busy Pool Treatment Company

Pure-Chem provides residential pool services throughout the Austin metropolitan area. The company inspects and services more than 650 pools per week. Pure-Chem's service technicians now use Palm handhelds, instead of paper forms and three-ring binders, to record pool water treatment service information for each customer pool they visit.

The Palm Powered application helps Pure-Chem handle five times the number of customer calls and eliminates the paper forms plagued with bad handwriting or water smudges. Paper shuffling and hours of data entry are now replaced with standardized data that can be analyzed in ways that would have been too cumbersome before, such as tracking how many pounds of chlorine and other chemicals are used per pool. This data can now be used to analyze cost factors and employee performance.

"Not only can I service more customers, I can keep track of trends with my customers' pools and identify potential problems before any dangers present themselves," said Mike Schapansky, Pure-Chem president.

City Government Agency Improves Efficiency with Wireless Data Access

The mayor of Lincoln, Neb., is committed to serving constituents by making his city hall a 24-hour organization. The first department to deliver this level of service is the Lincoln Animal Control Division. Using wireless Palm VII handhelds and the Palm.Net(R) wireless service, Animal Control staff have access to mainframe information and can get data on animal owners, pets and previous dispatches from virtually anywhere in their jurisdiction. The solution has dramatically improved the operational efficiency of the department.

Switching to Palm handhelds eliminated the need for monthly printed lists used to look up pet license numbers that quickly become outdated. Now, when an animal control officer finds a stray dog or cat, finding the owner is as simple as entering the license number on the dog's tag on the Palm VII handheld. The application that the City of Lincoln created provides officers with owner information as well as history on the dog. Division Head Jim Weverka of Lincoln's Animal Control Division reports, "Providing Palm handhelds to the animal control staff has decreased the cost of information distribution by 50 percent in this first year."

In addition, when the department compared the 800mhz radio system in Lincoln City police cars against the Palm.Net wireless service, they learned that the Palm solution was three times faster at transmitting data. The Palm Powered solution speeds the response time by Animal Control Officers to citizen requests.

Now, the efficiency of Palm handhelds is catching on. Other city departments are lining up to begin using Palm handhelds to streamline data collection and have mobile, anytime access to the city's mainframe.

Heartland Wholesaler Tracks Truckers with Palm Handhelds

J&B Wholesale distributes quality food products and services to meat markets, retail grocery stores and food service distributors in eleven states in the Midwest using its own fleet of trucks. Drivers have regular sets of deliveries that are affected daily by docking delays, last minute pick-ups, weather and traffic. To continue to provide a high quality of customer service, J&B had to find a way to manage its fleet more effectively and be in better communication with its drivers.

Previously, dispatchers and drivers relied on cell phones and voice mail for updates on location or delivery status. The communication process was extremely inefficient. After considering automatic vehicle location systems that relied on custom, proprietary hardware devices, J&B selected Palm VII handhelds and the Palm OS(R) based etrace(TM) wireless application from Gearworks. With etrace, drivers and dispatchers can send messages in real-time via the Palm.Net wireless service to track trip status and driver location, eliminating the need for phone communications.

"etrace on the Palm handhelds have made delivery management much more effective for J&B," said Kurt Anderson, director of operations. "There are a lot of miles of road out there and a lot of customers waiting for their goods. This system helps me sleep at night knowing where any problems may arise and knowing when things are on target."

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc. is a pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, according to IDC (December 2000). Based on the Palm OS(R) platform, Palm's handheld solutions allow people to carry and access their most critical information with them wherever they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and educational institutions through thousands of application solutions.

The Palm OS platform is also the foundation for products from Palm's licensees and strategic partners, such as Franklin Covey, HandEra (formerly TRG), Handspring, IBM, Kyocera, Sony and Symbol Technologies. Platform licensees also include Acer, Garmin, Nokia and Samsung. The Palm Economy is a growing global community of industry-leading licensees, world-class OEM customers, and approximately 160,000 innovative developers and solution providers that have registered to develop solutions based on the Palm OS platform. Palm went public on March 2, 2000. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information is available at www.palm.com.

NOTE: Palm OS and Palm.Net are registered trademarks and Palm and Palm Powered are trademarks of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries.
SOURCE Palm, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.palm.com
CONTACT: Rochelle Adams of A&R Partners, 650-762-2850, or radams@arpartners.com, for Palm, Inc.; or Ronni Sarmanian of Palm, Inc., 408-878-2547, or rsarmanian@corp.palm.com