Understanding the Specific Challenges of Mobility in a High-Intensity Mobile Worker Environment, and How to Address Them
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How to get the Value of Mobile without the associated complexities Understanding the specific challenges of mobility in a High-Intensity Mobile Worker Environment, and how to address them A whitepaper by Zetes WWW.ZETES.COM | ALWAYS A GOOD ID 30 YEARS OF BUSINESS VALUE ABSTRACT Over the past few years, mobile technologies have experienced real hype, driven by an ever evolving consumer market. What few The use of mobile technologies in supply chain people realise is that mobile technologies have been delivering process execution has delivered substantial substantial value to mission critical business processes for business value over the past 30 years. Recently, three decades. due to technological and cost evolution, we have seen the numbers of mobile initiatives increase, In the beginning, mobile and automatic data capture focused on often occurring as a simple extension of traditional eliminating manual data input behind a desk. Traditionally, at information systems. Whilst we regard this the end of a field operation, an administrative employee would increased attention as encouraging, there are get a pile of handwritten notes or filled out forms, and enter risks. When used by High Intensity Mobile Workers, these into a computer system, hopefully without too many errors mobile technologies present a very specific set of and delays occurring. Using mobile technologies to introduce challenges and opportunities and underestimating some form of automatic data capture in the field, close to where them is a mistake. To compare a mobile project with and when the data was generated, has led to significant cost a desktop project, or regard it as an extension of efficiencies and increased data accuracy being achieved. an existing information system and apply the same approach and tools, can create serious problems. Less costly administration and increased reliability of available data has led to better supply chain visibility, which allowed for This whitepaper addresses the key challenges reductions to buffer stocks and working capital needs, creating that arise from a mobile, as opposed to traditional further efficiencies. Information Systems (IS) project, highlighting how a failure to appreciate these differences can lead At the same time, the resulting reverse communications channel to excessive project and operational costs, even to became useful for making data available to field staff in order to project failure. The whitepaper also suggests how to empower them with the right information at the right time, so address the challenges of mobility, and what to look that the right decisions could be made at the point of activity. In for when selecting the right tools to do so. its extreme, this information could be ‘what to do next’ so that field staff workflows became driven by information systems. The focus of this whitepaper is mobile applications This has led to even greater improvements in efficiency and used by mobile workers in a process along the supply quality. chain. We will refer to such users as ‘High Intensity Mobile Workers’, or simply ‘mobile workers’. These efficiency and quality improvements have been achieved across the entire supply chain. This can include the following stages: • On the packaging line: labelling and registering units as they leave the manufacturing line; recording which boxes were loaded onto pallets. • In the warehouse: tracking goods being received, put- away and prepared; loading goods on time and in full onto the right vehicles for transportation. • On the road: delivering goods to the right location, on time and in full. • In the store: ensuring shelf availability, where and when the customer wants it. 2 ZETES WHITE PAPER Significantly, payback periods for these types of projects are need to be split second, whether there is network coverage or often shorter than a year. not. Obviously, the requirement for near to zero-latency has consequences for how applications and user interfaces are Historically, these mobile applications have been built by people designed. with a deep understanding of the business processes, the technologies involved, and the realities of field working. The sheer number of transactions processed by a mobile worker Today, as a result of technological and cost evolution, we see It is not uncommon for a mobile worker to process 2000 very an upsurge in mobile initiatives. Attracted by this demand, similar transactions during a day, whilst standing on his feet. increasing numbers of companies and developers who have Consider an order picker gathering products to put on pallets. specialised in classical information systems endeavour to When executing 2000 similar transactions every day, it matters transfer their experience onto mobility projects. Often, these a lot if a transaction is executed with 3 keystrokes rather than companies approach mobility with the same mindset and tools 4. Ideally it is executed using no keystrokes at all. Whereas on a as they would have used in a desktop environment, frequently desktop it is acceptable to ask the user to click on a checkbox, with disastrous results. The mobile world is fundamentally select from a drop down menu, and push an OK button, on a different and this needs to be taken into consideration when mobile device, it is not. On a mobile interface one should aim undertaking a mobility project. Failing to do so creates the risk for the user to complete an entire transaction with the push of of it becoming a costly exercise, both during development and a single button, the scan of a single barcode, or even by ‘telling’ afterwards, when operating the application. Occasionally it can the system a number, allowing hands and eyes to continue even lead to outright project failure. It is important to understand handling goods in the meantime. Traditional developers do these differences, so let’s start by exploring them. not always consider the ergonomic aspects of mobile in such an environment, and not all development environments and CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES SPECIFIC technologies cope well with requirements for fully optimised TO MOBILE user interfaces that use all the available interaction capabilities of a mobile device. Mobile can deliver great value but also presents specific challenges and opportunities. These need to be addressed in Mobile workers are often temporary users order to ensure that the potential value is realised and that In supply chain processes, it is not uncommon to cope with the total costs involved in creating and operating a mobile peaks in activity by employing temporary workers. Such application remain under control. workers are often only employed for weeks, if not days, which makes it uneconomical to spend more than a couple of minutes These mobile-specific challenges arise from differences in the training them on how to use a mobile application. Obviously, the User profile, differences in available resources on a mobile requirement for zero-training has consequences for how user Device, and differences in the Deployment Environment, as interaction is designed. It is an extra reason to invest in a fully compared to a classical application. optimised natural, intuitive interface, which makes use of all the available interaction capabilities of a mobile device. 1. USER Mobile workers can be very remote and isolated A MOBILE WORKER IS QUITE DIFFERENT TO AN OFFICE Mobile workers are by definition geographically dispersed. More WORKER often than not, they work far away from an IT support function A mobile worker’s expectations are substantially different and have no-one to go to for help. Again, this reinforces the need for an intuitive user interface and generates the requirement for A desktop user will happily sip coffee whilst waiting for the system a central helpdesk to remotely ‘look over their shoulder’ taking to respond, but a mobile worker will not. Often a mobile worker screen and keyboard control if necessary. is on his feet and client facing - he does not have 3 seconds spare to wait for his screen to respond with an answer. Think From a user’s perspective, there are clear, mobile-specific for a moment about the delivery man standing at your doorstep, challenges to overcome in order to achieve zero-latency, or the warehouse worker waiting for his next assignment, or high-efficiency interactions with a mobile device, intuitive ‘no- the store employee checking prices for a customer. Any system training’ user interfaces, and the availability of remote support. latency leads to irritation and lost productivity. Response times ZETES WHITE PAPER 3 2. DEVICE As stated before, the requirement for developing a fully optimised, highly efficient user interaction has consequences AVAILABLE RESOURCES ON A MOBILE DEVICE ARE DIFFERENT for how applications are designed and what the development THAN ON A DESKTOP, AND MUCH LESS STANDARDISED platform should allow. Physical constraints under the hood From a development perspective, if not tackled well, the use Mobile CPU, memory and storage have improved a lot in recent of multiple I/O can become costly. Often these peripherals are years, but are still not equivalent to what one would expect to find somewhat complex to program. To make things worse, the way on a desktop. Although in certain geographical areas bandwidth to address these peripherals is typically not standardised across has become less of a constraint, battery capacity has not. And devices. This means that one might end up redeveloping the use the more radios communicate, the more the battery drains. of every peripheral for every new device type, for every new OS, and for every new release of a device. Without the necessary These physical constraints lead to the requirement for tools, this often leads to trade-offs between maximising user optimised use of resources, which has consequences for productivity and minimising development cost. Avoiding this application architecture, database set up and the configuration trade-off generates the requirement for an abstraction layer of communication protocols.