When drivers returned to the office, they had to count the money, add up the invoices and total them by cash or credit sales, and then balance their route financially. The invoices would be keyed into the Lotus Approach system to track operational data and into the general ledger system.

"On a hot summer weekend we might make 500 to 600 deliveries a day, and we sell five different ice products," Gorman said. "All of this made the old paper-based system time consuming. It could delay delivery during a hectic day because a driver had to balance his first route before he could reload his truck and go out again."

Finding a "Beta" way to automate order management and delivery
With the number of deliveries continuing to grow, the company needed to update its order management and delivery process to:

• Eliminate all data entry;
• Streamline the dispatch process;
• Communicate route changes to drivers out on the road (and be sure they get the info correctly);
• Reduce overtime of drivers when they're in the office balancing the money;
• Make more and better operational data available;
• Ensure the accuracy of the data going to the financial systems.

Realizing that handheld technology might provide a better way of managing the delivery process, Rosenberger Ice began researching handheld systems to see what was available for direct store delivery. "We found several off the shelf systems, but they were expensive… $3,000 to $5,000 per vehicle plus the software."

Just as things were looking grim, Rosenberger Ice found ThinAir Solutions (at http://www.thinairco.com), a Palm developer. ThinAir was working on a system similar to what Rosenberger Ice needed. In December 2000, Rosenberger Ice became the Beta site for the handheld solution now called VanLinx, a mobile application that uses Palm VII handhelds and a mobile database suite by iAnywhere (at http://www.ianywheresolutions.com). Being the Beta site for VanLinx not only allowed Rosenberger Ice to influence the functionality and overall development of the solution, it also saved them a lot of money. The company paid only $15,000 for the software. In addition, each truck has a Palm handheld and Seiko thermal printer for a cost of about $500 per vehicle.

By March 2001, the first workable version of VanLinx was tested. "We used one driver as the guinea pig. Since spring is a slow time for the ice business, it was ideal timing to test something new," said Gorman.

Training took about one week for both the drivers and the person setting up the routes on the server. By early May, VanLinx was fully deployed at Rosenberger Ice's main location. The company spent two weeks using both the paper-based method and the handheld application to ensure the accuracy of the data.

"All of our drivers accepted VanLinx well. They all saw it as making their job easier, especially when they returned at the end of the day," Gorman recalls.