Mobile workers comprise one of the largest segments in the workforce. Any business that fields a sizable mobile workforce faces tough management challenges, including locating and communicating with mobile workers on demand, strengthening dispatching and scheduling capabilities, improving customer quality of experience and cutting field asset costs and risks.

Beyond these challenges, companies are looking to empower their mobile workforces and create additional revenue streams by providing mobile workers with access to back-office applications like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.

@Road Field Force Management (FFM) solutions enable you to address the above challenges and opportunities through its combination of leading wireless, GPS and Internet technologies with advanced @Road mobile computing applications. The result is improved productivity, increased revenues, better metrics for managing your business and improved customer service. @Road Field Force Management hosted solutions offer the ability to provision just the features and functionality you need without impact on your IT department. You simply sign in to the @Road web site to manage your employees, assets, services and communications with your mobile workers.

The @Road model incorporates four elements to create the most effective Mobile Resource Management solution: Data Capture, Data Transport, Data Processing and Data Applications Integration.

Data Capture

Gathering location information is just the starting point for many @Road Field Force Management solutions. Leveraging our patented LocationSmartSM technology, @Road data capture devices continuously collect location information from GPS satellites, calculating position, speed, direction of travel and time. The information is sent via wireless networks to @Road data centers, where you may access this information from your secure @Road online account 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

@Road offers two ways to collect data—through in-vehicle or hand-held devices.

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LocationSmart Platform

The @Road LocationSmart(SM) platform seamlessly integrates a number of complex technologies—including wireless communications, Global Positioning System (GPS), hosted software applications, transaction processing and the Internet—to provide user-friendly, cost-effective solutions for managing the movement and flow of company employees, goods, services, vehicles and transactions. This platform is the foundation for all @Road Field Force Management product lines, including @Road GeoManager, @Road Pathway and @Road Portico.

Data Transport

Transmitting data is a complex business—especially transmitting mobile data across multiple wireless communications networks and positioning systems. Each wireless carrier offers a unique implementation of current protocols, as well as different systems for dealing with Internet addresses. In addition, an effective data transmission system must address the issue of coverage gaps.

@Road solutions work seamlessly with a variety of technologies and wireless communications networks. To supply the connectivity critical to intelligent wireless solutions, the @Road infrastructure leverages the technology of major wireless carriers, including Cingular SM, Sprint Nextel, Verizon and others. Highly available, reliable and scalable, the @Road wide-area network offers robust performance and global coverage capabilities. Patented LocationSmart technology transparently stores location information during gaps in GPS coverage and forwards that information on to @Road servers once coverage is re-established.

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Data Processing

Until the point that your location information arrives into the @Road system, it’s simply a collection of bits and bytes traveling across the network.

@Road Field Force Management applications identify and classify the information, providing you with meaningful business intelligence about your mobile workforce. We format this information in real time, enabling you to view it online or generate historical reports.

@Road’s Field Force Management solutions take a modular approach to managing your mobile resources, giving you the ability to continuously tailor the solution to the needs of your business as it grows and changes.

@Road Field Force Management solutions include:

• @Road GeoManager iLM
• @Road GeoManager PE
• @Road Pathway iLM
• @Road Pathway PE
• @Road Portico iLM

Learn more about @Road solutions.

Data and Applications Integration

@Road has developed a suite of integration solutions to meet the complex needs of diverse organizations that require a complete, integrated, online solution they can deploy quickly across multiple departments or divisions.

@Road enterprise integration solutions provide advanced integration capabilities—from simple batch type processes to tighter real-time integration—to enable companies to connect mobile resource information with back-office and other mission critical systems and web services. @Road solutions support the emerging web services standards, simplifying integration to ERP—including HR and supply chain management—CRM, or data warehousing applications.

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@Road MRM Solutions Datasheet (pdf)

@Road Overview
@Road Facts-at-a-Glance
Field Force Management
Field Service Management
Field Asset Management

Learn more about @Road solutions.