For many businesses, supply chains represent not just a means of satisfying customer demand but a way to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Whether your business is manufacturing goods, growing corn, extracting a natural resource or selling shoes, the ability to optimize processes within your supply chain provides an opportunity for differentiating yourself in the marketplace.
Increasingly a wide range of companies across a broad range of industries are also making mobile technologies a key tool in their business operations. Mobility brings a whole new set of capabilities to the table and can be a real catalyst for improving business processes. And of course many of these processes sustain and ultimately determine the health of your supply chain or the strength of your role in an even bigger chain that supplies products and services to end-users.
In a recent McKinsey article entitled Next frontiers for lean, the authors describe how the lean philosophy can translate in to greater value in business areas outside operations and industries outside manufacturing. At the core of the argument is the ability to improve processes. With mobile devices playing a greater role in processes, it stands to reason that optimizing the utilization of those devices can have a positive impact on the business process it is a part of.
For many enterprises that have incorporated or are contemplating using rugged devices in their business process, the next logical question should be how do I ensure that I get the most out of that investment? Very quickly, the answer points to your ability to effectively optimize your device environment. This in itself may not be as straightforward as it seems. It might seem that device management is the obvious answer but that would address only part of the issue. Since the devices are participating in processes, it becomes important to look at device related issues that impact overall process efficiency. This is where factors like device utilization, traceability, and compliance come in to play.
Your ability to maintain the operational readiness of your mobile device environments requires a way to not only monitor and manage the physical performance characteristics of devices but also a way to identify and address issues that may impact device performance. A simple example would be around an area like battery management which has as much to do with how users comply with device maintenance policies as it does with the physical condition of batteries themselves. Identifying, isolating root cause and fixing the process requires a more comprehensive approach to the problem.
This type of problem lends itself to a services-based solution, one that employs not just tools but people employing assessment techniques and data that can point the way to solutions that are often unique to each customer’s situation. Motorola Solutions addresses this emerging problem with a service called Mobility Lifecycle Management, which places its focus on all of the connected processes required to establish and maintain operationally effective mobile device environments.
While your end customer may not have much interest in the specifics of how their shoes, shampoo, car, or gasoline got to them, the process that got it there is worth optimizing. And in a world so dependent on mobility, that means optimizing the mobile device environments which underpin so much of our today’s supply chains.
Richard Orgias is Senior Manager, Enterprise Services Marketing at Motorola Solutions, Inc.
Visit our website to explore Managed Services from Motorola Solutions.
Entries » Blog » Strengthen Your Supply Chain by Optimizing Your Mobile Device Environment
Strengthen Your Supply Chain by Optimizing Your Mobile Device Environment
By Richard Orgias
For many businesses, supply chains represent not just a means of satisfying customer demand but a way to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Whether your business is manufacturing goods, growing corn, extracting a natural resource or selling shoes, the ability to optimize processes within your supply chain provides an opportunity for differentiating yourself in the marketplace.
Increasingly a wide range of companies across a broad range of industries are also making mobile technologies a key tool in their business operations. Mobility brings a whole new set of capabilities to the table and can be a real catalyst for improving business processes. And of course many of these processes sustain and ultimately determine the health of your supply chain or the strength of your role in an even bigger chain that supplies products and services to end-users.
In a recent McKinsey article entitled Next frontiers for lean, the authors describe how the lean philosophy can translate in to greater value in business areas outside operations and industries outside manufacturing. At the core of the argument is the ability to improve processes. With mobile devices playing a greater role in processes, it stands to reason that optimizing the utilization of those devices can have a positive impact on the business process it is a part of.
For many enterprises that have incorporated or are contemplating using rugged devices in their business process, the next logical question should be how do I ensure that I get the most out of that investment? Very quickly, the answer points to your ability to effectively optimize your device environment. This in itself may not be as straightforward as it seems. It might seem that device management is the obvious answer but that would address only part of the issue. Since the devices are participating in processes, it becomes important to look at device related issues that impact overall process efficiency. This is where factors like device utilization, traceability, and compliance come in to play.
Your ability to maintain the operational readiness of your mobile device environments requires a way to not only monitor and manage the physical performance characteristics of devices but also a way to identify and address issues that may impact device performance. A simple example would be around an area like battery management which has as much to do with how users comply with device maintenance policies as it does with the physical condition of batteries themselves. Identifying, isolating root cause and fixing the process requires a more comprehensive approach to the problem.
This type of problem lends itself to a services-based solution, one that employs not just tools but people employing assessment techniques and data that can point the way to solutions that are often unique to each customer’s situation. Motorola Solutions addresses this emerging problem with a service called Mobility Lifecycle Management, which places its focus on all of the connected processes required to establish and maintain operationally effective mobile device environments.
While your end customer may not have much interest in the specifics of how their shoes, shampoo, car, or gasoline got to them, the process that got it there is worth optimizing. And in a world so dependent on mobility, that means optimizing the mobile device environments which underpin so much of our today’s supply chains.
Richard Orgias is Senior Manager, Enterprise Services Marketing at Motorola Solutions, Inc.
Visit our website to explore Managed Services from Motorola Solutions.
Take a tour of Mobility Lifecycle Management.
Read additional blogs by Richard Orgias.