Hand Held Products and ExPD Help to Keep BA in the Clouds
15 February 2006
Successful collaboration provides rapid and more efficient service.
BAX Global uses Dolphin mobile computers from Hand Held Products to ensure streamlined logistics operations. They developed a customized end-to-end logistics system covering warehouse radio data collection, thermal transfer tag printing and a proof of delivery system. This helps them provide a swift and accurate response to their customers.
A British Airways plane is sitting at the gate at Heathrow, engines running and passengers strapped in. Suddenly a key component fails. Passengers are taken off the plane and arrangements are made to get them to New York on another flight. Meanwhile, your disabled plane is parked on the tarmac, costing you £200 a minute in lost revenue. Now, what do you do about getting a replacement part?
In such a situation, time is critical. A spare must be delivered to the stranded plane without delay. This is where BAX Global comes to the rescue.
BAX Global is a £1.5 billion global transportation and supply chain management company offering multi-modal freight forwarding capability to business-to-business shippers worldwide. The UK based arm of BAX Global is at Heathrow and its forte is manning the supply chain for the world's leading aerospace companies including Boeing, Airbus Industrie, General Motors, British Airways and Air France to name just a few.
It is at Heathrow where BAX Global have brought in barcode and data collection specialist ExPD. With the huge costs associated with delays in the aerospace industry, it is imperative that BAX Global offers a swift and accurate response to their customers. Responsible for spares storage, they needed a high speed data collection and user picking operation to keep to help them meet spare part requests - from nuts and bolts through to spare tyres.
Working collaboratively to specify the requirements, ExPD developed a customized end-to-end logistics system covering warehouse radio data collection, thermal transfer tag printing and a proof of delivery system. A range of hardware was selected, including 40 Dolphin hand held terminals, truck mounted computers, truck mounted and portable printers and wedge scanners. ExPD also assisted in the creation of the application program using Hand Held Products' unique Visual Basic add-on software development tool, RF Simplicity.
Mark Sarl of BAX Global said: "We elected to use the Dolphin RF system because of the product design and ruggedness. ExPD as a trusted supplier assured BAX of excellent product performance, and to date the system is proving a great success".
Adrian Harris, Sales Director at ExPD, said: "We have worked very closely with BAX Global to ensure they can provide the rapid and efficient service that is vital in the industry in which they operate."
