Magazine: Mobile devices conquer logistics

According to Ferenc Végh, managing director of ProgAdat Kft., mobile devices are gaining ground in logistics informatics. PDA applications are spreading at breakneck speed. One of the most important tasks these days is integrating mobile solutions into existing systems. The goal is to make processes faster and easier to monitor. Transportation and invoicing tasks frequently have to be done together, so mobile devices have to be capable of taking care of both invoicing and cash movement registering. IT solutions are becoming more important in warehousing and transportation too. By using personal digital assistants (PDA) and online apps goods movement become 20-30 percent faster and more precise, while paper use is reduced drastically. The managing director’s experience is that the profit margin of wholesalers fell so much in the last few years that the automation of warehouses became a necessity, together with optimised and cost efficient transport organisation and order picking. Mr Végh also talked about the future of RFID, personally he would like to see the technology spread, but it still costs a lot to introduce. At the moment QR codes constitute the transition between traditional barcodes and RFID, as they carry much more information than the former but cost less than the latter. Imre Sasfi, chief architect of the XAPT Group agrees that mobile devices are conquering the world of logistics. He told us that the Microsoft ­Dynamics business management system they distribute is perfectly in line with this trend: the latest, R3 version of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 came out this May and features many logistics applications. Users get a new warehouse management solution with online PDA and device management functions in addition to the work organisation and control system. There is also a demand planning feature that supports inventory management processes. The chief architect opined that mobile devices play a key role in monitoring and controlling logistics processes. Both customers and logistics service providers can now follow the path of goods online. Mr Sasfi’s view is that logistics don’t exist without informatics. Lajos Szabó, managing director of iData Kft. told our magazine that those companies can be winners in the logistics and transport market which find the right solutions to become more efficient and use them successfully. The company’s KVSE solution monitors truck drivers’ driving styles and helps cutting costs resulting from uneconomical driving. This year the company is working on developing transportation management software. Mr Szabó told that it pays off for companies with minimum 5-10 vehicles to use such software and with fleets above 20 vehicles it is a must.