Agmark Foods Case Study

In the shipping industry, on-time deliveries are the standard by which excellence is measured. When a company delivers perishable liquid food goods, such as fruit juices and milk products, these on-time deliveries become even more important. Agmark Foods needed a solution to take their fleet management into the 21st century. It also enabled Agmark customers to check the progress of their deliveries in real time, 24 hours a day. The company’s increased operational efficiency and reduced downtime has directly improved its bottom line.

Panasonic Toughbook fully-rugged computers were the perfect solution. Toughbook wireless technology enabled Agmark to digitally capture customer signatures onsite and process all their billing electronically. This completely eliminated the need for wasteful and error prone paper tracking. The result has been increased operational efficiency and a vastly improved bottom line.

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ArboMetrics Solutions, Inc. Case Study

ArborMetrics Solutions (AMS) is a leading vegetation management service company in North America. With its arborists constantly on the go, covering tens of thousands of distribution line miles across multiple states, using pen and paper to note job schedules and provide status updates proved to be inefficient and time-consuming. In an effort to improve workers' efficiency, AMS set out to find a mobile computing solution that offered both the durability needed to withstand harsh weather, such as snowstorms and hurricanes, and a reliable, fast 3G connection that enabled real-time collaboration among team members, regardless of location. After careful consideration, the company deployed approximately 80 Panasonic Toughbook® 19 convertible tablets with Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Built-In. Thanks to the Toughbook 19 and the Verizon Wireless 3G network, AMS has a mobile computing solution that reliably operates regardless of the work environment and keeps mobile workers connected to critical data in real time. This solution allows AMS to provide its customers with a greater and more reliable level of service, helping to ensure the power stays on for millions of Americans.

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Comag Marketing Group Case Study

Comag Marketing Group (CMG) helps the world's leading magazine brands stand out with comprehensive sales, marketing and promotional services offered through a network of sales venues. CMG's mobile workforce was equipped with proprietary handheld devices and laptops to collect and process in-store data. However, the handhelds could not be integrated into CMG's corporate systems and the laptops were poorly designed and suffered from high failure rates. In order to serve its customers better, CMG needed a mobile solution that could make data collection more efficient and cut data processing time.

After evaluating a number of devices - including laptops, handhelds and tablets from various vendors - CMG determined that only Toughbook U1 and Toughbook T8 provided the right combination of mobility, flexibility, connectivity and durability to handle the job. With the Toughbook rugged mobility solutions in place, CMG was able to cut data processing time from weeks to just hours, setting itself apart from the competition. And, in the first seven months of deployment, the field workforce has not experienced a single hardware failure, significantly improving productivity and easing IT management needs.

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Frederick Memorial Healthcare System Case Study

Frederick Memorial Healthcare System (FMH) in Western Maryland consists of a hospital, cancer treatment center, ambulatory services and a home health hospice organization. As a patient transfers from the emergency room to an in-patient setting to home care, practitioners need access to up-to-the-minute data to make sure patients are getting the quality care they need.

However, home healthcare providers recorded data with pen and paper, which didn't allow for continuity or communication with other departments. To address this issue, the IS team deployed Panasonic Toughbook® T Series with Verizon Wireless mobile broadband for all home healthcare services. David Quirke, VP, CIO explains, "You have to focus on a solution that gives you a solid hardware platform, a reliable connectivity to your home health agency… and the solution with Panasonic and Verizon wireless, for us, was that answer."

The investment has paid off. FMH was recently awarded with a HIMSS stage 6 for EMR adoption. That puts them in the top 1% of hospitals for electronic medical record adoption nationwide, and most importantly, their patients receive better, more consistent care.

Hendrick Motor Sports Case Study

In the competitive world of NASCAR®, a split second can mean the difference between winning and losing. Extremely reliable, advanced mobile computing technology is a critical part of the data analysis, simulation and constant communication it takes to get ahead.

Hendrick Motor Sports®, the racecar designer for drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., required a performance laptop that could withstand oil, metal chips, grinding dust and constant vibration. When put to the test, most laptops failed after one year of use.

In 2004, Hendrick Motor Sports deployed Panasonic Toughbook® mobile computers to design and develop state-of-the-art racecars, and to analyze a car's performance on the track. The result: a tough mobile computing solution that's still running strong. The durability, integrated mobile broadband and speed of Toughbook mobile computers give Hendrick Motor Sports the competitive edge needed to win the race.

Labatt Case Study

Labatt Food Service is a San Antonio, Texas-based distributor of food and food related products to restaurants in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. The company is widely recognized in the food service distribution industry as an innovative, customer-focused and high-energy leader. In 2008, Labatt decided to use technology to improve driver satisfaction and delivery efficiency. After exhaustive research, the company selected the Toughbook U1 running on the AT&T mobile broadband network as their solution. Since adopting the solution, Labatt has seen process efficiency improvements, a reduction in fuel consumption and driver turnover has been cut in half.

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Las Vegas Fire & Rescue Case Study

Las Vegas Fire & Rescue officials are tasked with protecting 600,000 permanent residents and millions of annual visitors; navigating some of the largest hotels in the world. Reliable communication and instant information access are paramount, but responders initially accessed critical information using external wireless modems that, over time, got in their way and caused connectivity issues. The agency addressed this problem by switching to a powerful embedded wireless solution, equipping vehicles with rugged Panasonic Toughbook 31s with Gobi mobile broadband on the AT&T Wireless network. Responders are now able to immediately access critical information during an emergency, allowing them to work faster and smarter.

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Marketing Werks Case Study

Based in Chicago, IL, Marketing Werks is the largest independent experimental marketing firm in the United States. It creates mobile and event marketing campaigns for major consumer brands. Its field team is primarily on the road, executing events that range from large-scale mobile marketing experiences to guerilla marketing demonstrations. After experiencing failure rates of over 50 percent with standard, non-rugged laptops with external wireless broadband cards, Marketing Werks began looking for a laptop with an exceptional mobile broadband solution that could stand up to the abuse of constant travel and hundreds of consumer interactions a day. The team deployed Toughbook 52 notebooks with Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Built-In, which reduced laptop failure rates from over 50 to less than 3 percent. The company has received excellent Mobile Broadband coverage on the Verizon Wireless 3G network, which has increased productivity and helped employees remain connected. Now with 135 Toughbook 52 laptops deployed in the field, Marketing Werks considers Panasonic and Verizon Wireless valued partners in its success.

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Tulsa Police Department Case Study

The Tulsa Police Dept. faced three simultaneous challenges: equip its officers with ultra-portable computers, jumpstart an e-ticketing project and upgrade their slow wireless network to maximize productivity and provide consistent Internet access for officers across the city. After an extensive testing period, it became clear to Tulsa PD that Panasonic Solutions Company and Sprint offered the best solution for their needs.

Panasonic and Sprint helped Tulsa PD find the right technologies for their specific requirements, centered around two complementary products - the Panasonic Toughbook U1 and the Permanent Display Removable Computer (PDRC) - as an in- and out-of-vehicle computing solution. The Toughbook U1 is an extremely rugged handheld computer with a 5.6" sunlight-viewable touchscreen and full keyboard. The U1 seamlessly connects to the PDRC, which combines a vehicle-mounted display and full-functioning keyboard for heightened capabilities inside police vehicles. The U1's embedded wireless technology accesses the Sprint 3G network, providing a strong signal for officers to obtain images, file reports and utilize eCitation software from regions that used to be dead zones.

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