It won’t be wrong if we compare our homes to warehouses, or more specifically, to a mini-warehouse. It serves as a home to a variety of items ranging from materials in their raw form to some in the intermediate processed state to some others in their finished form. Online ordering of products and getting them delivered at an unexpected rate can give us the impression that it’s a really simple process. But what underlies it is a complicated chain of events, or more accurately- the complex supply chain.
Supply chain is how you turn a grain into a drink, including all processes, internal and external, to realize your drink
~Barry Meijerink, Director of Accounts Development, ProTrans
A supply chain comprises all the complex processes involved in transforming raw materials to their final finished form that reaches the customers. This chain includes industries such as those dealing with the raw materials, the manufacturing industry, the logistics sector involving the transportation of goods and the sales and service industry that interacts with customers and deals with their queries.
Hexnode UEM as a support for the raw material industry
Supply chains begin with raw materials. Ensuring the quality of raw materials is a prerequisite for providing high-quality finished products.
Trilogy Personnel & Land Management (PLM) is a pioneer in the field of agricultural management, focusing on a variety of agricultural services. Its main areas of interest include irrigation operations, vineyard crop operations, nut crop operations, farm management and aspects like payroll processing services. Their consistency in delivering quality labor professionals for field services for addressing customer concerns has made it one of a kind.
For services involving a wide range of activities, tracking their individual progress contributes significantly to the whole process’s efficiency. With Trilogy PLM mainly dealing with skilled laborers for fieldwork, having an accurate log of laborer’s work time can be really beneficial. Android and iOS devices deployment to the laborers made this process easier. These devices effectively served the purpose of communication and served as a logbook to keep track of the laborer’s worktime, eliminating the need for pen and paper-based records.
Can any advantage exist without an impending disadvantage? I seriously doubt that. With this implementation emerged another major challenge of device management. The countless devices deployed to the laborers needed an efficient monitoring mechanism. This, however, remained dormant for a really long time. But, the sudden increase in the data expenses brought the issue of device management to the limelight. Some more issues!! Thus, the organization began searching for a management solution, which led them to Hexnode’s free trial version. Greatly impressed by its features, Hexnode was adopted as their MDM, putting all their device management concerns to rest.
“Being able to control policies this way is extremely time-saving, and it’s very beneficial having them.”
~ Salvador Malta, Continuous Improvement Specialist at Trilogy Personnel and Land Management
Issues faced
- Ensuring that devices are used for work-related purposes alone
- Preventing access to all non-work applications
- Managing increased data expenses
- A need to push custom applications to multiple devices
- Tracing devices misplaced by laborers
Hexnode as the solution
- Hexnode’s Kiosk mode for locking the device to custom applications ensuring access to the work-related applications alone
- Selectively manipulate device settings with the help of advanced kiosk functionalities
- Controlling data expense by setting restrictions on the use of data by various applications
- Easy pushing of custom applications to devices in bulk
- Location tracking feature for effortless device tracking
- Remote ring feature to quickly locate lost devices and lock the device if unable to trace the device within a specified time using the remote lock feature
- Dynamic grouping feature for easy device grouping and bulk policy application based on aspects like geo-location
Increasing the efficiency of manufacturing processes with Hexnode UEM
The manufacturing industry can be considered the successor of the raw material industry. Raw materials often need a manufacturing process to increase their utility.
CHL Systems, an ISO 9001:2015 registered manufacturing organization, is targeted to improve the production process of client organizations by automating them. Its practical and cost-effective approach of incorporating the most advanced technology and services for automating the production process has helped gain an edge over the others by successfully meeting client expectations.
This new implementation created many challenges, one of which was the manual device setup. Additionally, there emerged a need for enforcing corporate restrictions like email, Wi-Fi and pushing store apps to the device. Some more issues. Now, an MDM was the ultimate answer to all these issues. With Hexnode’s vast multitude of features, all these issues vanished without a trace.
“…The users no longer have to bring me the phone for every issue. With Hexnode, I could interact with their devices, check on the resources, and manage these kinds of things remotely.”
~Anthony Lewis, System Administrator at CHL Systems
Issues faced
- Difficulty managing the devices manually
- Push store apps to the devices in bulk
- A need to manage and secure app data
Hexnode as the solution
- The easy device deployment process
- Pushing store apps to the devices is further simplified
- Silent app installation on Supervised iOS devices without any user intervention
- Blacklisting/ Whitelisting apps is simplified with Hexnode
- Mandatory apps to ensure the presence of all essential apps on the device
- Easier to set up remote app updates, in-app configurations etc.
- Remove apps from devices automatically upon device disenrollment
- Strong password policy coupled with other device settings for enhancing security
Hexnode UEM for improved logistics
Once the manufacturing process is over, the next main step in the supply chain is logistics. It includes a wide range of aspects from acquiring, storing, and finally transporting the resources to the final destination.
Acuitus Ag is an agritech solutions firm tailored for farm equipment suppliers. It’s vital in that it provides customized and effective solutions to thousands of customers across the globe. It has helped significantly enhance productivity by enabling comparisons with previous data and making future predictions accordingly for planning the upcoming seasons more effectively. Further, alerting the distributors and dispatchers when crops are ready for transport also contributes to increased productivity and returns by giving them a clearer picture of when a truck must be prepared for pickup.
Acuitus Ag, being a firm solely dependent on farming, providing access to real-time data combined with powerful analytics could effectively drive down operational costs. With this in mind, devices were installed in the vehicles and real-time data was made available through them so that the users had access to it while working, reducing the need for carrying the device around with them.
With over 300 Android devices spread across hundreds of miles and assigned to multiple users, device management became impossible without an MDM. The active search for an MDM led to different MDMs which couldn’t satisfy their features, pricing range and customer service requirements. Finally, their search culminated in Hexnode, as it exactly had all the requirements they were searching for.
“Hexnode has saved me an incalculable amount of time. The devices are spread over hundreds of miles. It would have been impossible for me to manage the devices without it.”
~ Dan Piquet, Co-Founder at Acuitus Ag
Issues faced
- Need for managing a large number of Android devices remotely
- A requirement to restrict the device to the work-related apps
- Enforcing features like app management, Android Enterprise and email configurations became a necessity
Hexnode as the solution
- Kiosk mode for restricting the device to a few necessary apps
- Easy to install and uninstall applications
- Easier to configure emails remotely
- Remote restart feature saving significant amounts of time
Melher Transport Inc. is a freight shipping and trucking establishment renowned for its delivery services. With services extending nationally and internationally across 48 states between the US and Mexico, it has become reliable due to its fast and secure delivery of all sorts of valuable goods across this region of service. Its services further extend to a wide range of services like warehousing, supply chain optimization and on-site freight management. Its closely monitored facilities ensuring prompt delivery have made it the preferred choice of many.
Being an organization focusing on delivery services, managing the supply chain plays an important role in timely delivery. As the use of personal mobile devices increased, keeping track of freight began being cumbersome. It was then that Android tablets began being deployed for logging the trip details. With these devices serving as Electronic Logging Devices (ELD), recording the essential information like distance covered, driving hours, date, time and geographic location data entry became a simple process.
Though this greatly simplified the process of data logging, there emerged some other problems that needed attention. With employees using the tablets for personal purposes, network data began being exhausted, frequently interrupting the transfer of important information. As there was no means of limiting the data usage, managing the tablets cost-effectively became a demanding task. This was how the need for an MDM emerged. After trying out many MDMs, Hexnode ultimately served as the solution that met all their requirements.
“…So, by getting your product…what I think is that they use their phones for their… watching picture or whatever, but they are not consuming our data…”
~ Alberto Melendez, Company Owner at Melher Transport Inc.
Issues faced
- Device location tracking and maintaining the logbook records was a major problem
- Difficulty keeping track of freight due to increased personal usage of devices
- Data being exhausted frequently due to misuse and absence of a method to check it, making the situation even worse
- A need to manage and control the tablets as per the requirements
Hexnode as the solution
- Easy device enrollment
- Mobile data management solution to efficiently manage and get details about the various applications that are being used
- Email alerts to notify the user of high data consumption
- Real-time location tracking feature for fetching the location of each tablet and even access the complete history in case of a necessity
- Ensuring that the device settings remained intact even after resetting the device
- Kiosk mode for locking the device to work-related applications
Easing the sales and extended services with Hexnode UEM
The final component in the supply chain involves the customers. The product sales, the subsequent maintenance and the repairs are important factors that come along with it.
Goudy Honda, established in 1975, is an all-in-one dealership managing most of the aspects of cars, beginning with its initial purchase and extending towards its subsequent maintenance and repairs. Its services include a variety of cars like sedans, couples, hybrid cars, in addition to a range of new and certified pre-owned cars. Its customer-centric nature providing free shuffle service or loaner cars for customers requiring extended repair, has made it distinctive.
An automobile dealership often has to deal with a variety of aspects, from displaying information related to brand new cars to convey the information related to the services, accident histories etc., to the customers in case of pre-owned ones. The organization thus used iPads to display information like car specifications in the showroom and digital contracts.
All these steps simplified the various activities related to car dealerships effectively. However, ensuring that the devices are being used for work-related purposes alone was yet another challenge. After failing in the attempt to lock the device to a set of websites using apps from the Apple App Store, and with the increasing device issues that needed to be addressed, all fingers began pointing to a UEM. After trying out Hexnode’s free trial, they couldn’t resist incorporating Hexnode as it had all the features they were looking for.
“I put the configuration, and everything works just the way I wanted it to…This is awesome, no headache.”
~ Bernie Yahya, Chief Information Officer at Goudy Honda
Issues faced
- Ensuring the use of devices for work-related purposes alone
- Solving device issues manually in the office was time-consuming and affected productivity
Hexnode as the solution
- Easy device deployment and single console management
- Kiosk mode to restrict the iPads to the work essential apps and websites alone
- Making the MDM profile non-removable to prevent unnecessary device tampering
- Remotely pushing and updating apps became easier
- Easier to manage all installed applications from the MDM console
- Mandatory app policy to quickly identify the devices in which those apps were missing
Share your thoughts