Mobile Computing Technology

Welcome to Mobile Computing Technology. Computing and the Internet’s Social Web continues to migrate from stationary desktop applications to mobile applications. Mobile Computing Technology tracks this trend, and brings you informative mobile computing articles, educational mobile computing videos, lively mobile computing conversation, and  dialogue, and mobile computing devices in an easily accessible website.

Brief Interruption.
Need a Vacation?
Click here for Video…

Today with the iPhone and Android phones, people are now able to connect to the pervasiveness of the Internet at will – check emails, look up information, talk, text, update social networking items, document on camera and share with an individual or the Internet at large, record audio memos, issue computer commands by voice (hands free), etc. The list goes on and on.

Cellphone use is now at 60% of the human population, which if you think about it – it represents a change in all human aspects – relationships, shopping, recreation, career type, etc. Like Alice in Wonderland – we have gone down the hole into the technological world – never to be the same again.

Thank you for visiting and supporting Mobile Computing.     

Perceptions of Mobile Computing Technology at SJFA

This video is an EDUC 5400 class presentation that discusses the results of my micro-research project.

Baldwin Foods Looks at Quality with Rugged Mobile Computing with LXE

Baldwin Richardson Foods, headquartered in Frankfort, Illinois, with manufacturing facility in Macedon, New York, produces bakery fillings, syrups, sauces, toppings, beverage mixes, condiments packets, and other food products. “Our operations were all manual. We wanted to automate and had looked into different bar coding systems over the years, but nothing was the right fit,” says Craig Czajka, the IT manager at Baldwin Richardson Foods.

 

Mobile data collection systems provide real-time visibility for batch traceability, raw materials levels, and finished goods inventory.  Innovative vehicle-mounted, hand-held, and wearable mobile computers must be dependable, tough, and reliable. Wireless computers extend corporate networks to mobile workers in demanding conditions and only rugged mobile computers drive down costs and improve customer satisfaction.

 

 

Based in Norcross, Georgia, LXE offered Baldwin Richardson Foods a full range of turnkey services, including radio integration, project and installation management, network design, technical support, and repair services. LXE helped the company transition to real-time visibility and gain control over raw materials, production status, and inventory transfers, warehousing, and distribution to customers. “Bar coding doesn’t fix things, it just makes things faster,” says Czajka. “We had to fix our processes first. The knowledge LXE had about working with our Ross ERP system was very valuable to us. Some of the other vendors we looked at had started to support Ross, but they weren’t there yet.”

 

LXE helped Baldwin Richardson Foods design a wireless network and mobile data collection systems to support new processes that provide real-time visibility for batch traceability, raw materials levels, and finished goods inventory.

 

Previously, production was carefully controlled, but the handling and storage of finished products relied on fork-truck drivers using paperwork. Raw materials were delivered to “cook decks” where cooks manually recorded the contents and amounts of each ingredient used in a batch. Completed products were stacked in cases on pallets at the end of the production lines. Fork-truck drivers cruised among any of the five to seven lines running that day, looking for full pallets, which they would pick up and deliver to a staging area for transfer to Baldwin Richardson Foods’ distribution facility. Paper order tickets informed drivers of the truck bay to deliver each pallet. Some production runs last for three days; others are completed in a shift. During production runs there were very few updates to the ERP system when drivers relied on paperwork. Backlogs developed and jobs often were not closed until three to six days after the actual production run ended. Because there were very few updates during production, data in the ERP system was often several days behind, making it difficult to accurately manage inventory.

 

According to Wayne Baxter, of BaxTek Solutions, in Snellville, Georgia, a leading systems integrator that works closely with LXE in the quality PartnerPass program, “The increasingly significant role of food traceability makes the value of collecting real-time data less of an option and more of a necessity. Finding vendors with rugged data collection products is absolutely essential. We found that in cold-storage food plants and other food processing and warehousing situations, LXE has a vital role in HACCP [Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points].”

 

BaxTek Solutions (www.baxtek.com) is one of the leading Systems Integrators in the barcode verification, data collection, and supply chain industry that offers a diverse suite of products including RFID, RF Terminals, Printers, Wireless Access Points, Software, Remote Portable Terminal and Printer Management and Repair Services.  The company specializes in traceability and tracking solutions for the food industry from “farm to fork.” 

 

 

 

 

BaxTek Solutions

www.baxtek.com

Tina Nagaitis

Marketing Manager

Solutions@BaxTek.com

866 722 9835