Producer's Dairy Decreased Annual Costs By Approximately $55,000

Producer's Dairy is an independent dairy that has been in business for more than 75 years. The company supplies fresh dairy products that distribution personnel deliver directly to clients across the western United States. Imagine you are a grocer receiving a delivery of a Producer's Dairy product. What do you expect at the time of delivery? You certainly expect to be able to verify that your order is correct, pay for your order, and obtain a receipt.

Producer's Dairy operates from 10 locations throughout California, and has more than 2,500 customers. To be able to satisfy customer expectations, the company began using handheld computers and portable printers more than 10 years ago. The handheld Producer's was using was experiencing a failure rate of 8% to 10% per day, mostly due to the non-rugged nature of the devices. "These failures were causing us to waste valuable time while waiting days for a replacement," says Frank Sewill, director of administration at Producer's Dairy, "More importantly, the failures were causing customers to be dissatisfied because they were unable to pay or obtain a receipt at the point of sale."

Along with the aging handhelds, Producer's Dairy was using dot matrix 8 1/2 X 11 in. printers, which were mounted in the delivery trucks. The drivers had to go back and forth from the delivery site to the truck when printing an invoice or receipt. The printers the company used required 8 ½-by-11 inch paper and a printer ribbon, which combined, ended up costing Producer's Dairy $40,000 each year. Using an 8 ½-by-11 inch piece of paper for an invoice with only one or two items was wasting expensive paper.