When your business software won’t do the job!
We have a core group of programmers here at the EMP Tech Group. Not a big group, but three employees working full time on nothing but programming projects. That means we can get some good work done but are not big enough to tackle massive projects, writing entire applications….usually. But lately, we have taken on some good-sized projects.
One project was the rewrite of a mobile warehouse application for a major pharmaceutical company, bringing the application from legacy Windows Mobile to Android. Another was a receiving and shipping application for a heavy industry company whose existing WMS application did not do all that was needed. Finally, the featured Customer Solution in this month’s newsletter is a field service application. Another story where the customer’s existing software platform did not quite do everything that was needed, so the EMP Tech Group wrote a supplemental piece of code to help get the job done.
The final thought is field mobility. This term has been used in the Auto-ID industry to describe “Outside of the 4 Walls” applications. Not on the manufacturing floor or warehouse but out in the field. The applications this term covers have a lot of variety, field service, couriers, direct store delivery, etc. The application must almost always work on Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Many customers use consumer devices for these applications. Still, if the environment can get rough, the device is mission critical, and barcode scanning is involved, moving to a rugged device is the better path.
With this in mind, this month’s newsletter features one of our custom applications for field mobility and rugged tablets that can be used for these applications.