We are all familiar with the idea of barcodes. Any trip to the grocery store means you will encounter thousands of them, each one assigned to a product. But how exactly do barcodes work? Here is a brief history on barcodes and how they work.

If you’re looking to purchase rugged technology, chances are you’re looking for something that’s tough enough to take out into the field. But with field work, there’s more to it than just having a device that can take the bumps and drops. You want something that’s not only going to be powerful enough to run the applications necessary for your business, but something that will be comfortable and easy to carry. In today’s day and age, there are numerous choices for ruggedized technology, but it boils down to one major question: Do you use a rugged laptop or rugged tablet?

HRAOK, Inc. was founded in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in 2000, with their primary focus being assisting the private sector in the development of quality residential communities in and around the Tulsa metropolitan area by offering professional land surveying and civil engineering services to a variety of clients in the housing industry. Today their services range from all types of residential, commercial and institutional development projects to complex municipal infrastructure improvements.

After nearly 10 years with the Windows 7® operating system (OS), it's nearing time to say goodbye. As it stands a little under half of all the computers in the world still use it.

In the town of Sherborn, Massachusetts, the Sherborn Fire and Rescue Department was undergoing change. Adapting to the state’s mandate for electronic medical records, the Fire Department was in the market for rugged-yet-mobile technology that was powerful enough to run their software. With around 75 active members performing between 500 and 600 emergency calls per year, the technology needed to be rugged enough to withstand the high demand and the rough environments the first responders experience.

In today’s day and age every job has technology at its heart. Some companies are more advanced than others, and that can make coming to a new company difficult. That’s what Steve Fenske experienced when he left his old job and took a position as the Body Shop Manager at Huber Chevrolet in Omaha, Nebraska. The difficulty wasn’t that he had to learn a new technology, it was that he had to go back to the old ways of doing his job – pencil and paper.

Which is the right choice – consumer or rugged tablets? No doubt that’s a question that anyone with the need for such technology has asked themselves. Other questions that might be asked include: What’s the real difference between the two? Is one superior to another, and if so, why? Here are six differences you’ll quickly notice between the consumer and rugged tablets.

In 1962, Walling Distributing began distributing Anheuser-Busch beer with just three sales routes. Now, over 50 years later, they are stronger than ever. They are at the forefront of their industry, partly due to their early adoption of new technologies that help them deliver and sell on their routes. But they were running into a keypad issue with their most recent tablets, an issue that needed to be fixed.

MobileDemand customers use rugged tablets and cases in extreme environments. Sometimes we learn about ways the tablets are used that we didn’t expect.

The University of Iowa department of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is a department focused on conducting research and teaching students about social and biophysical systems and the events that shape the world. They focus on understanding these dynamics with emphasis on human-environment interactions as well as the science and technologies needed to analyze, model, and visualize geographical processes.

At the University of Minnesota (U of M) in the Twin Cities, research, education and outreach is changing the lives of not just students and alumni, but people around the world. Tomorrow’s visionaries are focusing today on important issues affecting individuals and communities.

The Signal Mountain Police Department is comprised of fifteen full-time officers who address a wide range of enforcement and service issues including active neighborhood patrol, traffic enforcement, drug detection and enforcement, investigations, call response, and community services. With such a wide array of duties, it was difficult for the department to keep up with their antiquated pen and paper methods. When they decided to upgrade, MobileDemand rugged tablets became their first in-car computer systems.

Klein Volunteer Fire Department provides fire suppression, rescue, and medical emergency assistance to the people of Harris County, Texas. The department operates nine fire engines, three aerial apparatus, two heavy rescue trucks, two tanker trucks, two grass/brush trucks, one special services support truck, one command/rehab truck, and various miscellaneous support vehicles – a total of 30+ vehicles in their fleet. With a fleet as large as this, the firemen needed a tablet that is as rugged, durable, and reliable as they are.

Ducks Unlimited focuses on the conservation, restoration, and management of North America's wetlands and associated habitats for waterfowl. Their efforts benefit other wildlife, people, and the environment. They partner with government, industry, non-profit organizations, and landowners to connect people to nature and make a healthier world for future generations. In 2017, they began a two-year study for Ducks Unlimited Canada, (DUC) the largest they've seen to date*. The study covers included 76 million acres of the Borel Forest in the Northwest Territories' wilderness.

When Daryl LaMonaco purchased a MobileDemand xTablet T8600 in 2007, he had no idea that 10 years later it’d still be a very useful device. The tablet was originally purchased to be a point-of-sale terminal in his New Jersey storefront and has since taken on roles as a home PC and a truck-mounted tablet. The reliable Windows 7 (was Windows XP for a while) rugged tablet is now tripod-mounted, helping Daryl control his two state-of-the-art telescopes.

MobileDemand partner Phantom Controls has developed a patented system to automate fire truck water pumping with remote capabilities to allow the operator to move about the scene and work with the crew. The system utilizes the MobileDemand xTablet T8650 which can withstand a fire scene's harsh conditions.

Rimports is a company consistently moving products across the globe. With their fleet of products produced in China, and distributed throughout the United States and Canada, Rimports has become a major name in the fragrance retail market.

Southern California is famed for its sunny weather and dramatic Pacific Ocean coastline. But from land, one might not realize that the rocky and rigid coastline has caused many shipwrecks throughout the course of history, many of which are undocumented.

As a preeminent manufacturing company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Steeltek, Inc., designs and manufactures shell and tube heat exchangers. Since 1984, Steeltek has served the needs of the petro-chemical, gas processing and refining industries.

Kirlin Florida (part of The Kirlin Group) has been a preeminent leader in the mechanical contractor field since it opened its Florida office in 1982. Today, Kirlin is in every major region of the state, and their management team continues to push both the success of their services, and their customer satisfaction higher and higher. Their problem for the longest time, however, was the tedious and cumbersome way they collected their business data.

As all car dealerships know, it’s more than just the initial sale of a car that leaves a lasting impression with customers. It’s the fast and reliable service in the months and years to come that keeps individuals coming back to purchase other cars in the future.

J.R. Bolton Services, Inc. was founded in 1983 with one goal: to provide residential and commercial customers with the highest quality energy products and customer service. That business model has remained in place to this day while their service area has expanded to include metro Atlanta and the greater Lawrenceville area.

In the transportation and distribution industry, knowing where your products are in the warehouse and out on the road is key to running a profitable business with excellent customer satisfaction. For Erdner Bros., Inc., an East Coast Regional carrier out of Swedesboro, New Jersey, it’s no different.

In the quaint Midwest town of Russell’s Point, Ohio, sits one of the largest manufacturers and employers in the entire state, Honda Transmission Manufacturing (HTM). With over 10,000 full-time employees, HTM produces automatic transmissions, gears and four-wheel drive components that are supplied to other Honda companies worldwide.

For over 50 years, Alabama-based Linden Lumber has been specializing in producing and exporting Southern hardwood lumber across the globe. Their process of producing lumber is a complex “art form” that takes years of experience and knowledge, ensuring that lumber moves through their facility as smoothly as possible with the highest-yield. With over 250 employees involved in their daily operations, they saw room for improvement in inventory and shipping activities.

The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT), located in Ontario, Canada, is a non-profit organization who empowers clients and community partners to drive a culture of innovation, productivity, and life-long learning. NORCAT handles several different industries, one of which is mining.

Timberline Manufacturing based in Marion, Iowa, a suburb of Cedar Rapids, is a contract assembler of wire harnesses, control panels, radios and other electronic assemblies for agriculture, food and beverage, off-road equipment, government and other industries. Their 45,000 square foot facility utilizes a team of over 100 dedicated employees to fulfill all orders small and large.

Northglenn Ambulance, of the greater Denver, Colorado area, needed a cost effective, mountable solution for their paramedics. They chose the Microsoft Surface and rugged xCase to replace their Panasonic Toughbooks.

Located in east central Missouri and 65 miles southwest of St. Louis, the town of Sullivan has a population of approximately 10,000 citizens and is served and protected by 16 sworn police Officers along with 7 civilian employees.

For warehouses and manufacturing facilities throughout the world, it’s absolutely vital that they are as efficient as possible when it comes to the movement and distribution of their goods. For Minnesota-based Japs-Olson, it’s no different.

With a population approaching 700 thousand, Seattle, also known as the “Emerald City”, is home to the Space Needle, the original Starbucks and the recent world champion Seattle Seahawks. And as is the case with every other US city, its citizens care about local, national and world news. That’s where the Seattle Times comes into play.

This blog post comes from Russ Martin, Southeast Regional Sales Manager here at MobileDemand. - For more than 20 years, forklift mounted computers, originally known as vehicle mounted terminals (VMT), have been transforming the way products move throughout the supply chain. Early implementations of these VMTs usually emulated traditional host-based terminal applications. Adding bar code scanning to the system greatly improved the timeliness and accuracy of the data in the system, allowing companies to be more attuned to their operational efficiencies. As with most process improvements, these strides going forward did come with a step or two back. In the case of the vehicle mounted computers, these back steps came in the form of power glitches, resulting in the terminal shutting down, or rebooting; usually resulting in the loss of critical data. These interruptions could cause a loss of productivity due to downtime that resulted while the user waited to log back on to the system to resume their duties.

When it came to equipping the Schertz Police Department motorcycle units with the technology to access mission-critical information, they lagged behind the patrol car units. The patrols cars are equipped with rugged laptop computers, providing officers with access to the information needed to make informed decisions and keep themselves, and constituents, safe.

Heniff Transportation Systems is one of the top 20 liquid bulk carriers in the United States. The Chicago-based company operates terminals in Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Louisiana and handles roughly 30 percent hazardous and 70 percent non-hazardous materials.

Trucking. It’s a tough business. With high operating expenses, compliance regulations, fluctuating fuel costs, and super thin margins, trucking companies live or die based on the efficiency of their operations and productivity of their drivers.

Ben E. Keith is the second largest Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in the United States covering 61 counties in North Texas including Dallas and Fort Worth. It also carries an expanded portfolio of craft and import brands throughout the territory and has additional branch locations in Austin and Houston. Over 250 pre-sale routes service customers throughout the state of Texas.

The Red Bull Racing Team was looking for a competitive advantage by adopting technology that was rugged enough to survive the grueling and hostile NASCAR racetrack environment. It also wanted to automate the collection and distribution of critical car performance and equipment data in real-time to speed up decision making at the track. Working with real-time data would let the team make quicker decisions that could affect the outcome of each race – when to call for a pit stop, tracking how much fuel goes in the tank, how the tires are wearing. Mired for years in outdated pencil and paper and dry erase boards, the team needed a tablet that could run Microsoft Windows and its racing software. One that could survive track temperatures reaching 138 degrees and being left out in the rain. MobileDemand offered an Intel Atom-powered solution that saved The Red Bull Racing Team both time and money.

Affiliated Foods Midwest (AFM), a cooperative owned entirely by independent grocers, made a simple computer switch in its stores recently that led to a large and very real financial payoff.