Although one often hears that a mobile solution--a combination of software and mobile computing devices--will solve many organizational issues and produce significant ROI, this argument alone is not likely to win over a CFO or other decision-makers. Present such a vague argument and, at best, the decision-makers will reply with "Show us the money!" At worst, this may earn you a demotion to a windowless cubicle in the basement. After all, implementing such a project represents a significant investment of time and money, and leads to a drastic change in the way a company operates. One should be able to defend why it is all worthwhile.
Data collection
Mobile solutions offer a number of savings and efficiencies, but perhaps the most important deals with how data is collected. In most instances, a mobile solution replaces a paper process. But regardless of how data is collected and stored--on paper or electronically--the data collection is usually the result of some action, such as performing an inspection or replacing a part. In the pen and paper "clipboard" model, this data is then passed along to a data entry clerk whose job it is to enter it into a central system which typically includes billing and inventory databases.
The problems inherent in this paper-based model are painfully familiar to those who operate this way. As the information that comes from the field is often handwritten, mistakes are inevitably made reading and inputting it at the central office. This becomes an issue for organizations such as the City of Jacksonville's Building Inspection Division, which does 800 to 1000 inspections per day. Thomas H. Goldsbury, Jacksonville's Chief Building Official, says, "When the inspectors would handwrite their results, it wouldn't get put in correctly--either the clerk could misread what they wrote or maybe there was a data entry error."
Data entry error is not unusual though. "Most companies experience a manual data entry error rate of 5 percent ... I think that's conservative. It's probably more like 10 to 20 percent," says Mike Rioux, President of IDEA (Industry Data Exchange Association).
The fact that manual data entry can result in a significant error rate is important for two reasons. First, data error leads to operational errors that eventually result in frustration for both employees and customers. Consider a technician who replaces valve #1 and notes that valve #2 needs to be replaced in six months. However in the data entry phase, the numbers are transposed, and six months later a technician is sent out to repair the wrong valve with the wrong part.
Second, data error leads to errors in strategy and planning. Frequently, companies rely on mining new ideas out of old data. However, if the data being analyzed is inaccurate, the new ideas may be a gamble at best; a disaster at worst.
However, data entry errors also occur when field employees are working on site. With traditional paper forms, an employee gets no feedback from the forms. Miss a question in an inspection, forget a decimal, or enter a measurement in centimeters instead of inches and a paper form provides no feedback or alert. Electronic forms, on the other hand, can be configured to ensure that the data that is entered is in the correct form, and that all relevant questions have been answered.
Electronic forms also can automatically incorporate information that might otherwise be provided over the phone or a pager, but which would have to be rewritten in the field. A call center representative will enter a customer's name, location, and problem into a central computer system; additional time will be spent conveying this information to the field; and there another employee will have to copy it down again to a paper form.If that field employee writes "Jon Jones" on the form instead of the customer name as it is in the central database, "Jonathan Jones," that employee unwittingly creates duplicate records in the system. The ability of a mobile solution to fill in relevant information automatically saves the technician time on site and ensures that the data that returns from the field is consistent with the data stored in the office.
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