The rollout follows a smooth U.S. deployment last fall to about 300 service workers who replaced paper-based systems with Panasonic Toughbook CF18s tablet PCs running Windows XP. The tablet PCs are connected over cellular networks to Tennant's SAP AG ERP system, Tom Hayes, IT project manager for the field service application, said in an interview last week.
Tennant started creating its mobile system with a variety of products in 2004 after dropping a home-grown system in its infancy, Hayes said. The current system, used to order products and equipment repair manuals, cost an estimated US$4 million to $5 million and has yielded big productivity returns. Hayes expects it to provide a payback on investment in less than five years.
Minneapolis-based Tennant is currently connecting users in the United Kingdom to the system, but will add multi-language capabilities through other countries in Europe later this year, Hayes said. That capability allows a Dutch-speaking Tennant rep to allow a German-speaking customer to sign a contract on the tablet with the contract details in German, he said.
Tennant relies on Dexterra Inc.'s mobile connectivity software, which is customized for Tennant's needs using .Net, Hayes said. The "ServiceLINK for Tennant" application had to be adapted for SAP and the tablet-sized screens, and has made possible greater efficiency to "technology innocent" users, some of whom had not ever used a computer, Hayes said.
"We had to make sure the tool was focused on service and not technology and Dexterra was an intuitive application for our reps," Hayes said. Dexterra is based in Bothell, Wash.
In addition, Tennant is using software from Persystent Technology Corp. in Tampa, Fla., to ensure that the data on a tablet PC is not altered by the user or through an attack or errant software update, Hayes said. Persystent works by storing a copy of the basic operating system in a hidden partition on the tablet PC, and making a quick comparison during the boot up process. Any inconsistencies are cleaned up, and the process doesn't slow the reboot process noticeably, he said.
In addition, Afaria software, made by Sybase Inc.'s iAnywhere business unit, provides management for the mobile devices and can deploy software and patches as well as the complex documentation for technical manuals needed to make repairs, Hayes said. Updates of the manuals reach the technicians within a day of publication, compared to months needed under the old paper-based system.
The system followed careful scrutiny of about two dozen vendors in the field, Hayes said. Before picking Dexterra, Tennant had tried to deploy a home-grown field service application, but had to abandon it in 2003, Hayes said. "We had to stop and start over...," he said. "We refocused our energies and learned to get 80 percent of the technology issues right and to focus on what's most important. We learned to get the project out and let it evolve."
The payback is coming partly from exceeding goals on automation of parts order processing and from billing, which used to take 10 to 12 days. It now takes just a day or two, he said.
Tennant's help desk has reported that service reps are "enthralled" with the application and won't give it up.
Hayes said he recognized that Tennant's success came from first defining a strong business need and then bolstering that definition with a strong business and IT partnership. As a result, he works in the same physical office space with a project manager from the business side, Ron Everitt. IT director Greg Hayhurst is part of the project team, too.
Hayes said Tennant knew up front that the weakest link in the mobile system would be the wireless cellular links. But those links have been made reliable by using internal cellular radios instead of portable laptop PCMCIA cards.The portable cards did not provide as strong a signal, partly because they had smaller antennas, Hayes said.
The field workers can mount their laptops in their trucks, but and don't need an additional antenna on the trucks to make connections. In the U.S., Tennant relies primarily on Sprint's Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO) network, he said.
Industry analysts said Tennant's success is in line with results from other companies. Sometimes, a field service wireless application can began offering an ROI in the first three to six months after deployment, said Stephen Drake, an analyst for IDC.
"There can be anything from cost savings on not having paper distribution and mail costs, to finding [that] three or four data entry clerks are no longer needed and can be repurposed," Drake said. "For the field force, there's even the possibility of a better work-life balance, since the field force no longer has to go home and do paperwork for two hours. There can be broad returns."
IDC estimates the mobile enterprise application market for software similar to Dexterra's tools will be $600 million this year, and should grow to about $1.4 billion by 2009. Dexterra competes with iAnywhere and Intellisync Corp. in San Jose, which was purchased in February by Nokia. Smaller players include Antenna Software Inc. in Jersey City, N.J. and Vaultus Mobile Technologies Inc. in Boston, Drake said.
Tennant's experience is instructive to other companies wrestling with field force deployments, said William Clark, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "A lot of companies try to do this themselves and they are wasting a lot of money," he said. "What these vendors are offering is pre-built components that can support different devices and different flavors of networks."
Clark said a study he did three years ago showed that a company could save 50 percent on average on the cost of deployment by relying on wireless gateways and applications from various vendors.