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 Hand held computer systems have been used in these industries for the past 20 years. These units are rugged, durable computer systems. They are generally the size of a small pad of paper, and include a display and a keyboard. They are designed to withstand rough handling, dropping, temperature variances, etc. They may also have attachments such as a printer and bar code scanner. They are battery powered. Data files are stored in the hand held system’s memory. Newer systems can have 2 MB to 8 MB of storage. They may also have PCMCIA slots with 5 MB storage cards. Norand Corporation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was one of the first manufacturers for this industry, and they have the largest market share. Other manufacturers include Telxon Corp., Fujitsu, and Epson. There are 2 major uses of the hand held systems in this industry. One application enables salespersons to key the orders for his customers. The second major use is for drivers. The hand held unit is used to record truck loads, print invoices, record cash, and print sales and settlement reports. In both applications, the hand held system can upload the transactions to the central system. This saves the data entry activity at the office. For sales applications, some hand held systems have a radio transmission capability. This allows the hand held system to transmit customer orders to the office as soon as salesperson has keyed the orders.
Garman Routing Systems, Inc. |