Handheld computers provide cost savings, versatility

---

With a fleet of nearly 200 company-owned tanker trucks, Northwest Food Products Transportation hauls millions of pounds of dairy products each day for more than 15 major dairy companies.

During the next year, the Hudson, Wis.-based company plans to quadruple in size by adding between 800 and 900 independent contractors, says Roger Nordtvedt, general manager. As part of this growth strategy, NFPT will be using a new technology to capture trip details from this set of drivers.

To comply with customer requests and a dairy regulation called the Federal Milk Marketing Order, NFPT keeps detailed records of the raw milk it picks up from milk producers (called patrons) and delivers to processing facilities. For each load, drivers record the patron ID, weight, temperature, date and time, receiving location and silo number.

For a number of years, company drivers have captured this information on electronic forms using the Mobius computers from Cadec Global. The Mobius computers are fix-mounted in the cab. Going forward, rather than purchase hundreds of new Mobius computers for its rapidly growing contractor fleet, NFPT will deploy software on handheld computers.

This new application, DeliveryTracker DCS from Cadec, extends the essential delivery-tracking aspects of NFPT’s fleet management software to independent operators through an application that runs on handheld computers made by Honeywell, Intermec and Motorola.

“As our independent operator base expanded, we needed to ensure that those vehicles would be tied in to our overall fleet management system,” Nordtvedt says. “Cadec’s DeliveryTracker DCS enables us to do that easily and relatively inexpensively, without our having to install fixed systems in contract vehicles.”