Has anyone had any experience with "industrial strength" PDA's? (like UPS or Fed Ex use)

[vi edit]

My company has about 50 different delivery routes and currently, all of our delivery sheets are printed out each morning and everything is done on paper.

We are looking at going the route of some sort of PDA to download the route info to and then print out an invoice on the spot to give to whoever is receiving the delivery at the customers site.

Basically the flow would work like this:

Download daily routes onto PDAs from foxpro app at distribution center
Driver makes deliveries - gets customer to sign on the PDA, PDA saves signature and invoice (along with changes) and then prints off invoice
Driver goes back to distribution center, docks handheld, signature and invoice is then dumped back into system
?????
Profit (just kidding 😉)

I know we've got IT gurus from all walks of the field and I was hoping that some of you could at least point me to some hardware providers or some all-in-one companies that could help build a ground up system for us. Yes, I could google it, but I would like some first hand experience on these products if possible.

Thanks for your help...and sorry if I posted in the wrong forum 😛

 

[Grey]

Interesting topic, I hope someone can give a source for these things. (or I could just use google damn I am lazy)

 

[RU482]

vi_edit...

There's a project I worked on up in Cedar Rapids at Intermec. Basically a ruggedized Pocket PC. I did environmental testing on the 700 series PDA
Intermec link

Intermec specializes in the type of product you are seeking (handhelp computers, bar code scanners, ect)

I also worked for a company that is now called Handera. Last time I talked to them, they were designing a ruggedized Palm PDA for someone.

 

[RossMAN]

I've seen the UPS PDA's (tablets with WiFi/radio whatever you call them)

They are big and ugly but seem very very rugid to withstand the elements and/or being dropped.

 

[shekondar]

Shameless plug (my company makes these)
Agama

 

[loup garou]

I have experience with this Symbol PalmOS unit:
http://www.symbol.com/products/mobile_computers/mobile_palm_spt1800.html
I helped develop a barcode scanning/data collection app that ran on these units then synced with desktop software. They worked great and were very rugged.

 

[mugs]

I've written software for the Panasonic Toughbook line of industrial-strength pocket PCs.

Text

 

[vi edit]

Thanks for the links and suggestions guys.

Much appreciated! I've got a lot of research to do on this. :Q