Our way of life simply wouldn’t be possible without an incredible variety of on-the-go mobile professionals. The mobile workforce is responsible for everything from making deliveries to grocery stores to fixing consumer appliances or repairing downed power lines.
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In the past, the mobile workforce was essentially given assignments and deployed for the day, with minimal communication between those on the road and those in the office. That often led to confusion, inefficiency, or loss of productivity.
Now, custom-built mobile workforce apps available through a laptop, tablet, or smartphone are revolutionizing roving work and making new things possible.
Let’s look at three different scenarios in which mobile workforce apps are accelerating business and expanding possibilities.
Mobile Workforce Scenario 1: Logistics
Delivery drivers and shipping specialists are the boots on the ground when it comes to powering the supply chain and delivering goods to consumers. Getting that job successfully and efficiently requires mobile tools for routing assignment and mapping, signature capture, and warehousing/shipping histories, just to name a few.
By creating a bespoke mobile workforce app, organizations can support their drivers and logistics professionals by creating an easy-to-use, unified toolkit that meets all these needs in one place and connects them directly to home base for communication and data transmission/look-up. In supporting their mobile workforce in this way, employers can also gain insight into driver analytics and delivery times, simplifying driver assessment and helping identify best practices.
Mobile Workforce Scenario 2: Inspections & Field Data Capture
Asset-intensive industries need to carry out a variety of inspections in order to keep people and businesses safe and compliant. Conducting an inspection can involve a lot of paperwork, though, and many environments getting inspected are not conducive to keeping paper nice and clean.
Using a mobile workforce app, inspectors can fill out their forms, create written comments, collect relevant signatures, and submit their reports through one single interface that eliminates the need for papers, pens, or clipboards. In a scenario in which an inspector is responsible for multiple different inspections in a single day, the app can also be configured to create a route map, presort inspection sites by distance, and communicate in real time with supervisors in the office, should the need arise.
Mobile Workforce Scenario 3: Mobile Service/Repair Work
Many service technicians and repair professionals spend the entire work day on the move in their vehicle, making communication between the field and home base a potential challenge. Mobile workforce apps can absolutely eliminate that challenge and create an environment in which the mobile professional and the office are fully aware of each other’s activities and needs.
Whether it’s appliance repair, public utility work, auto club roadside assistance, or any other mobile service-based model, a strong mobile app can provide absolute clarity in terms of service ticket assignments and routing, with the ability to make changes or updates and push them out across the fleet in real time. Additionally, the app also helps supervisors gain a fuller understanding of how time on the road is used, which of their mobile professionals are doing the best work, and how overall routines and workflows can be improved.
rSTAR Mobile Workforce Management Solutions
Illinois-based rSTAR is a leading innovator in the development of bespoke apps and portals to power the mobile workforce.
rSTAR mobile workforce management solutions deliver the functionality on-the-go professionals need to get work done and are fully integrated with company ERPs and CRMs to simplify both remote data access for mobile workers and at-a-glance check-ins for supervisors.
Confirmations, signatures, and updates submitted in the field are uploaded to company systems immediately, providing a quick, responsive experience and a high-accountability real-time documentation trail.
