Navigating Digital Transformation in Logistics

In this conversation, Denis Conway, from Peak Technologies and Ferry Spaan discuss the evolution of digital transformation in logistics, focusing on the shift from Windows to Android devices, the challenges of managing a large fleet of devices, and the importance of data security and uptime. They share insights on collaboration, risk management, and the lessons learned from a significant device failure, emphasising the need for strong partnerships in managed mobility and sustainability in device management.

Connected Technologies Podcast, by Peak Technologies.

Transcript

Paul 0:03

Hello and welcome to the Connected Technologies Podcast by Peak Technologies, where supply chain meets innovation. My name is Paul Norford, and in this series we'll explore how technology is reshaping the way critical operations run every day. From warehouses and delivery routes to industry management through to retail and the customer experience. The fate of change across the supply chain and logistics landscape is accelerating. We'll be speaking to the people living that change firsthand. Supply chain leaders, IT specialists, and mobility experts who understand what digital transformation really looks like on the ground. Today we'll explore the technology trends that matter, the strategies that keep operations moving, and why the areas like data security and sustainability are fast becoming essential foundations for modern supply chains. You'll also hear the real stories, the challenges, the breakthroughs, and the partnerships that turn complex problems into smarter operations. In this episode, the logistics landscape has been turned upside down with the wholesale shift from Windows to Android, the challenge of managing thousands of connected devices across complex supply networks, the pressure to stay efficient, connected, and secure whilst everything else around you is evolving at breakneck speed. Are you ready to explore what's possible? On today's podcast, I'm joined by Denis Conway and Ferry Spaan. I asked them both to introduce themselves, and my opening question was about digital transformation and why it matters more so for organizations in today's AI age. Gentlemen, good afternoon. Ferry Spaan and Denis Conway, great to have you here. Could you just introduce yourselves and tell us what you do and how long you've been in the industry for? Denis, I'll start with you, please.

Denis 2:06

Sure. Yeah, uh Denis Conway, I'm the VP for Technical and Operations with P Technologies. I'm based out of Ireland, our Irish office, where we're a global business with a number of facilities in US, Europe, APAC, and so on. Pretty much my remit is on the services side, the operations, logistics, and so on. I have a number of key key team players uh in each of the facilities. And also we overlap um obviously with our with our US counterparts as well for a lot of the global deployments and global rollouts that uh we may touch on here. Um 20 years pretty much with the same company. I know I look a little bit younger than that, but uh I was gonna be the first to say that actually, Denis. I'm I'm pretty much um in the same company from uh when I came out of college or university or or whatever way uh you state it. And I've been involved, I suppose, with a lot of the key OEMs over the years in the what we would class the auto ID industry, but also in a number of key areas, whether it's operational, whether it's technical, overlap some of the sales areas and indeed even into the finance and accounts. So um a broad skill set or what they say, jack of all trades, master of many.

Paul 3:14

Now I was gonna say many, many. Good to have you here, Denis. Yeah, good to have you here. Ferry, and if you could do the same, please.

Ferry 3:23

Yeah, thanks, thanks a lot. Uh my name is Ferry Spaan. I've been uh self-employed at Breedy for the last uh few months as a consultant and uh program management specifically. Before that, I've been working with uh with logistics companies for the last 25 uh more years and so. Especially the last 10 years, 12 years, I've been working uh with mobile technology, I see for operations. So think about all the scanners that the drivers that take along with them, and that has been really much my key um uh point of focus for the last years.

Paul 3:51

Fantastic. So you've both been in the industry for a considerable, a considerable amount of time. And obviously the industry has changed over the the the years. And it's clearly you haven't changed at all. It doesn't look like you've aged. Uh, and I wish you could share some of that that secret source with all of us, please. But but when it when it comes to the industry, uh Ferry, I I kind of want to I want to pitch this to you actually. So the industry's changed, it's it's gone through lots of different transformations, and right now we're in this age of AI, and a lot of people are kind of coining this as the digital transformation or the age of AI. So, so when it comes to kind of transformations, could maybe could you just maybe just help us unpack a little bit? When companies are looking to transition from the analog areas to now the digital areas, and if we think back to the changes that were made from Windows now to Android, uh how how do companies kind of scale and how do they how do they accelerate this massive digital transformation, moving from kind of Windows to Android? What would you say now is the biggest aha moment in this current digital age that companies really need to get their minds around and understand this huge shift in mobility?

Ferry 5:03

Yeah, I think it already started a few years ago, maybe even a few decades ago, when uh especially logistics companies were trying to get more and more household deliveries. I think people who were looking into this podcast as well, they will recognize that they were receiving more and more parcels every day and that you never knew when this parcel was arriving. And then the larger companies like uh multinationals, they started to explore more and more on track and traced kind of capabilities where you actually could see, hey, my driver is coming, maybe not in the next three days, but maybe it's coming within the next few hours. And that all started to change and picking up on more and more transport companies. And that was a big change for the entire industry of mobile scanning, mobile technology. It became way and way more demanding. And you saw that as well, especially in the leading companies as well, that they had to ramp up. New technology came in, Windows was at that time the most key dominant uh operating system, and then all of a sudden, everybody wanted to have these iPhones, they wanted to have the Android devices, and so were the drivers as well, and they were expecting more and more, and that was a big change in mobile technology, which you can even see today. And for me, the the biggest aha moment was when we were transiting from Windows devices to uh to Android devices, and especially the multinational um environments, the vast amount of change that were coming on. There were no changes anymore that every year you had a new um software version, no, every week a new software came up, and that's when things started to come complicated, especially if you think about more than 100,000 devices which you have daily on the route. Then it became uh difficult. What for me was really interesting uh was the moment where we started to calculate hey, how are we going to organize the supply chain? How are we going to manage those devices? And um in the old days where everybody in the teams had local IT representatives, every station, every location had an IT representative, and we said we can't do that anymore. 20,000 devices, there has to be a different way, and that's where we started to get more and more into device management, centralized supply chain. That's how it all changed. For me, that was the biggest uh game changer.

Paul 7:02

It's a real challenge to manage a handful of devices. It can be a nightmare for me to kind of manage my my own device, but you just mentioned 120,000 devices. That's that's quite a lot for any organization to handle. And and Denis, I want to bring you in at at this point. You've clearly seen a number of different things over your years of working in industry. And and would it be fair to say that the consumer world it tends to kind of lead the enterprise world? And and when it comes to that as well, device management is is something that really is a critical thing in the enterprise world. So I'll just kind of want to get your your view on this whole shift of digital transformation and what Ferry said kind of around managing a huge plethora of devices in the field.

Denis 7:50

Yeah, and it's interesting, like Ferry touched on the most valid piece of that I think was was probably the operating system or the how they've um evolved over the years. But not only that, uh like the Windows-based devices, you know, whether it was Windows, C Windows, mobile, pocket PC, so a lot of the early mobility devices we had from an operational perspective and were arguably before we had uh consumerization of mobile devices, right?

Paul 8:20

You're showing your age, Denis, mentioning those all of those Windows devices.

Denis 8:23

Yeah, yeah. If I recall, even having a hundred and twenty thousand devices on a platform to be managed, probably wasn't the case because the fact of the matter is those devices didn't they didn't patch, they didn't update OS as much as what we have today, right? So so certainly even the the knowledge of the user using them was a lot less. Whereas you know, but by I suppose over time, and if I just pick Android or iRS as an example, the fact of the matter is our school kids are using that device or operating system from a very, very early age. So over time it's good because they're more familiar with a mobile device the sooner they come into uh to a workplace, but that also brings its pitfalls because you know familiarity brings confidence, which means you know you got you're able to w wor work away around it, you can do this, you can do that, and and I suppose that's where this kind of mobile management piece really comes to the fore, because you know, with the greatest respect to uh one of the older Windows-based devices that might have took two hands to lift, I could be damn sure my daughter wouldn't know how to get on YouTube on it. All right. I I give her one of the more modern ones and she'll get it. Right. So it brings it the familiarity is great and obviously the even the mobility has grown so much in different the options and the you know the the the look and feel or the ergonomics and so on. But it it also does bring the pitfalls of what people will try and do with a mobile device. I whether on purpose or accidentally, I might add. It's not always uh, you know, that there is just people that are trying to work their way around a business-owned device and whatever it is by design or application, they may be clicking something, turning on something, turning off something that has a knock-on effect.

Paul 10:15

And and these and these devices aren't just in one sole location. You don't have 120,000 devices in one location. There may well be, I I'm not I've certainly not seen that in my career. I'd I'd have you either either of you seen that kind of 120,000 devices in one place, or do they tend to be kind of scattered to the four winds? Well, go ahead, uh Denis.

Ferry 10:36

Go ahead.

Denis 10:36

Yeah, yeah, go first.

Ferry 10:37

Yeah. Yeah, so the the area I was responsible for was just the European uh area. That's that's roughly about 41, 33 uh countries I was responsible for, and that alone had already 120,000 devices. So even for us, it was massive. And um and then also think about all the complexity of having it in the countries. When if you then look at the suppliers and the service partners had in in between, even 120,000 for just one single European region is a lot for them to handle as well. Yeah, so for us it was all quite uh new, and through centralization, you saw a bit of the 120,000, but it was a massive operation.

Paul 11:10

But these to your point, Ferry, these are these are across multiple countries, right? And several different, if if not you know, hundreds of different locations. So how do you how do you manage all of these things? And certainly with as you alluded to Denis, as you alluded to around kind of windows and and the several different flavors of Windows you could get. When it came to managing those devices, did did did Windows have an opportunity for you to be able to centrally look after all of those devices?

Denis 11:38

Yeah, and I I suppose some of the the later technologies really do help here, whether you're into the different MDM platforms or any kind of management platform that comes into play. I suppose historically and and at that scale I mean particularly, but anywhere where it's kind of multiple locations, it was probably a more manual same way you might have managed your laptops or IT, it may have been a more manual asset management, asset tracking type piece. And you know, there was tools that you might have pulled IP addresses off, and there was tools that but realistically, if there was no network involved or but you were very manual in how you might manage that kind of estate from a whereabouts. Obviously now. If you say manual, what is what does that mean, Denis? I mean, you could be literally booking st well, I'm I'm going back a bit now, I'm definitely showing my age, but I mean physically you could have been booking stuff in and out by uh an asset register or an asset number or using some sort of system. But the fact of the matter is the record was only good as when it was last updated. There was no real real-time data or real-time input that you might get that we get from today's tools, which could be via some sort of uh WAN network over SIM cards, GPS, and another a number of other factors as well. That like even in vehicle type solutions that we see now. I mean, it's on the telematic side. So there's there's so many more data points now that can get you real-time information compared to to where we were. But I they were just managed differently in the fact that there was a lot less options then. I guarantee you a lot of them are still using the same type of management solutions, but it might be per department or it might be per location. It's probably complemented that IT have some other element of device security that's on that also. Like you'll see a laptop that is locked down, you know, in a in a background for a company's organization. So they know who has it, you know, it's it's whatever way it's connected or the way it's set up. But that doesn't mean in the in the office, I'm sitting in one of our offices here, and when we hand out equipment, we're probably still doing some sort of asset register just in our office to know because we have access to that information. Whereas from an IT or more secure perspective, who has access to those systems to get the real-time information is potentially different.

Paul 13:52

Denis, are you suggesting that you're using a tool like this, like a pencil and a piece of paper for asset tracking? Are you suggesting that companies are still doing that?

Denis 14:00

I'm not confirming or denying that I don't see that every day. Exactly.

Ferry 14:04

And those are a big change in the I still remember well those days. If you look at the Windows area where we had a lot of Windows devices, even you had some basic MDM tools, as we call the management uh tools to dispatch all the new versions of the software you were using. Still we had uh dozens and hundreds of people, IT, coming account uh to every location to do some critical updates. If there was an issue on location where they had multiple issues with devices, people would drive for hours to the location and try to fix the devices by going on the device itself and pushing all the buttons they needed to do. And spent they spent hours. Now, with the Android evolution coming in and with more sophisticated device managers, you could more and more do it remotely. There was a big cultural change as well. Of course, you were taking away work as they felt it like you were taking away work of figging around with devices, pushing the buttons, and it was suddenly no longer needed. With just a few people over there who could just, as long as it was network connectivity, they could do everything.

Denis 14:59

Yeah, it's a great point, Very. And to be in fairness, and you you touched on it, you kind of gotta have a back that both options are backup option. You know, obviously in today's world, far more is deployed over the air. But I think a lot of operations need to have that failover that it ain't working, or for some reason it could be network-related or whatever. We need to have the backup of how do we get it going again, whether it's through cradles or locally or docking or physically, or you know, but I I still see both options more often than not in play. But yeah, by all means, far more of it now is over the air to get us back up and running, or barcode-based, zero touch type stuff, you know, that you have um you have reset processes. But more often than not, and you can probably attest to that, there's gotta be some backup solution for when you don't have one of those key requirements, EG network, right? So like data. I mean, some of the file sizes we're talking now are gigs, right? Gigs and gigs of an operating system. So yeah, it brings other uh challenges as well that uh may not lead well to a local organization. Yeah, indeed.

Ferry 16:08

No, it's about um data security and being offline, and that's what I want to say, uh Denis. And you tricked a good point. One of the issues we had is that in every location where you are, in Germany or in Greece or in Italy, there's always different network capacity. And if you're pushing software through or you're using a lot of data, or you're taking images of every uh boxes that pass through, you're taking a lot of uh usage of the of the network. So what we always ask, especially from the hardware point of view, is okay, build in enough capacity the software to have a backfall. The moment we lose connectivity, you should still be able to work. You also see that in the warehouses, you also saw that drivers. Drivers are entering areas where they don't have connectivity, they need to be at the customer where they have to switch off the devices. Um, so there's always this risk where you need to work uh offline.

Paul 16:54

It's a good point because you're talking about two distinct things. What what I feel you're talking about now is now that the world has moved on, we're talking about scalability and being able to keep devices working in situations where if they're not working, people will end up losing money. So if you think of the organizations that you used to work for, Ferry, these are mission-critical devices. They may have scanners, they may have keyboards, that stuff doesn't matter. But the fact that they are in a mission critical operation where if someone doesn't get their package, money gets lost, SLAs get broken. So I love that you're kind of alluding to the point of scalability. But obviously, with that scalability comes elements of security in this new ecosystem that we have. So, how operationally did you solve some of those puzzles?

Ferry 17:44

Yeah, there was an interesting journey, actually, to be honest, because you start out with thinking, okay, I just need to swap out devices. That's how our project started. And then once you start to dig into the new world of Android, you start to dig into the new type of technology that our manufacturers are providing to us, you come to a realization that when you talk about security and data security and privacy, you're opening a can of all kinds of aspects that you need to uh to think about. Think about security of the hardware itself. How do you log into your own Android device at your home? You have face recognition, you have your fingerprints, you have your coding. How do we make it suitable that any driver or any employee who's using that device can swap around and knows his uh his pin code? That's only in the hardware and the operating software. Then you had your network connectivity. How can we secure that one? So that was the one domains to look into. And it was only in the warehouses. But how do you deal with your network security outside? Once you're out in the field, are you using just any regular provider? Do you need to bring in more security levels and do we tighten it? So all these kind of experts we had to look into. But it was quite interesting and challenging at the same time. There's also how we got more and more connected with IT and security and especially the business apart this, um, the peak technologies indicates an example with uh with Denis, but also with the manufacturers to say, how can we combine all this and how can we still uh monitor it and control it? And we had seen quite so interesting cases when we thought we were in control.

Paul 19:11

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And and obviously, Denis, in in in your in your business and and your line of work, you you've had to keep up with the times as well, right? Else you end up becoming irrelevant. So, how how have you managed to pivot the business to keep up with not just the security but also scalability, where companies are required to deploy Android devices out into the field and to keep them secure and easy for users to work with.

Denis 19:39

Yeah, I'd say it's a good it's a very uh important uh part of it, I suppose, whether it's whether it's a company scaling with more people, more resources, whether it's partnering, some of the OEMs you you touched on, and but a lot of the time it is that skill set or the evolution of that skill set. Where even understanding the different data points that potentially come into play, and but what I mean to a degree on that is, and Ferry touched on an example there, is you know, your mobile device, and we're very focused on mobile devices, operating systems, and so on, but you know, also what they're connected to, you know, whether it's so they're connected to networks and so on. We've seen in a lot of cases in our company, because we would have a networking skill set, an MDM skill set, a mobility skill set, a print skill set, you know, and and and various different tools and platforms in between is that with the right setup, when you bring the right knowledge people base together and the right into you know a group and so on, you might be reviewing issues. One of the best examples we've seen is we were identifying a network issue through data from mobile devices, and that that was fed back into a team which then worked with their IT team to identify those issues or resolve those issues. Without getting too specific, it highlighted there's a certain firmware with a certain device type that is causing the issue. We're all focused on device type. We involve the different people with the different skill sets, and lo and behold, we go, this is access point firmware issue as opposed to device issue. So, so the the scaling and the skill set is definitely one thing, Paul, but also having the right processes to bring those different data points together, no different than any other business, because the day the data that's important to one department um that may not be as important to another, but then the how those data points work together might be the most important thing. All right. So it's very interesting how how it evolves. But we we try and do that as much as possible is to bring the different um groups together to maybe look at an issue or focus on an issue. And we've seen a lot. I mean, when you when you bring networks, operating systems, hardware, you know, user error into the equation, um over over time and experience you kind of might get to a resolution quicker. You might even prevent something, and in a lot of cases we'd like to think we would, but you also then might just get to a res resolution quicker or get some more critical information to a customer quicker to come back to I think your your most key point which is uptime. Everything is it's uptime. It was utilization. We want utilization, but you know what? Now we're into uptime. Do I need all these devices or not? Are they being used or not? Where they are? Okay. But now we're into uptime. We're into delivering products. We're into wet manufacturing lines that need to be running. You know, you're into all that. So there's there's all these arguments with the different groups that would would come into play. Hence the are are we using all these devices? Why are we not running? And you're like there's a trade-off there if you see what I mean. So um we we we work very well with the uh larger organizations for that front because you know we we we've evolved I suppose alongside a lot of them by working with the likes of Ferry and so on, being familiar with an operation, being familiar with the different teams in it. And then you know then which kind of data you need to bring to which groups that can bring a value out to their to their businesses as well.

Paul 22:59

Yeah, yeah absolutely and I'm sure it's not all sunshine and rainbows, right? So Ferry, I'm sure when you were deploying devices out into the field it it it wasn't all just plain sailing. Just help me understand when it when it came to and I'm sure it did happen, but when it came to crisis response where there wasn't uptime, where there was downtime, how did you approach that with a particular vendor and and what was your process for risk management?

Ferry 23:24

Yeah there was an interesting one Paul and what we did with the teams as well especially with suppliers to tell them the impact of if we don't have a device in time with a driver or at a VAS employee, what is the impact of cost to give them a little bit more visualization more feeling of okay it's not just a tool not just a scanner just grab a new one but also tell them hey if a if a driver's not able to drive that day using a scanner because it had a malfunction during his drive during his round um what would then be the the financial impact? And that was an interesting one. But if you look at a larger scale and then we have to look back at the situation we had in December 2022. I think everybody knows especially in the IT world if you're getting close to December end of year you don't want to touch anything you don't want to fix anything which is broken. So you want to keep your hands off of everything. So that same week started as well with an um an easy ride we would say that that week until we got some emails in through our teams and at that time we already had our ticketing system in place so that locations could file their the issues using the normal standard ticketing systems. But then we started to set get emails in saying we have never seen the screen before and we looked at the first emails in early mornings I think there were the more eastern European countries with an hour ahead of schedule like like Greece and those countries and the first images were like I see a complete factory reset of the device and it was in that problem. So yeah that's an issue yeah exactly and it wasn't only one suddenly we got more and more messages in and it went over like the sun was moving ahead into Europe we saw more and more devices getting into factory reset. So the guys who were just um uh waking up that morning uh gave them a ring say hey wake up now because we've got a serious issue going on and we're not sure what's happening and that's when uh especially two key guys in Europe one of the peak technologies you have to give the credits to them and one on the company side they started exploring hey what's happening why is a factory reset as I said if you don't have any network connectivity device anymore you can't see anything you can't uh fetch your log files you can't even contact them anymore so you can't see what happened and what is happening at the moment and the only thing we saw is more and more calls coming in more and more team messages coming in like we have an issue sir on a European level and what happened then is the guys who were working on the device management tools they were trying to see what happened just prior to that moment and they couldn't find anything they couldn't find any changes they started to contact IT IT was already in increasing their uh their risk uh levels saying hey we're now getting into a major alert because now more devices are breaking down that means entire European operations is at risk for scanning so we got more and more people involved we got them on a call and the only thing we could imagine there had to be an update somewhere made by any system and that's also how different vendors uh came on board and manufacturers came into the call and that's when they realized something's happening with the OS and that appeared effect so there was an update done by the uh the Google platform so the Android platform had been updated and that caused an issue with those devices.

Paul 26:24

And that was because just to summarize for me so you were at this point you were working for a major global logistics company shipping thousands of packages through your European facility. You then had devices that almost were kind of following the sun as the sun was coming up and they were failing. And if if you can't get devices in and out of your facility that's going to cause huge issues not just exactly financial impact but huge ramifications and knock-in effects to SLAs and everything else.

Ferry 26:54

So that's the scale of what had happened right yeah exactly if you think about the fact that it was especially happening with the drivers in the mornings when they came to the work to start uh sorting their uh their parcels for that uh that round that day they couldn't scan anymore and we saw more and more devices and there wasn't really every device and we couldn't really pinpoint which devices would uh fall down and which one didn't fall down so we couldn't pinpoint is it location related is it network related is this or that and we saw dozens and dozens in the end uh at the end of the journey there were around 800 impacted just in um in uh the organization so we were quite lucky and we do know that some other customers of the same brand and the same platform using the same platform had way more issues.

Denis 27:35

Wow so this was truly a global issue yeah good very good point there because we were stuck in the middle of that like in in general we were stuck in the middle of that issue right so um scary to see when you have red lights going off globally and you can see outage so you know that okay it's not all right here. But the trigger at the start of this was an error a black screen on the device. So you power on a device and you have the black screen I'm just gonna say R forward slash reset. That was it. Exactly it was like oh it's like the blue screen on the laptop right you're like exactly exactly right so naturally it's the device problem. So that's how it started device problems. The the the device manufacturers and the different partners that are involved from supporting devices it was the first port to call I fairly touched on it there. It was through other analytics that we were able to determine more what the cause was but that was based on having an MDM and even in our case we were focusing on one customer but because we're with global coverage we were getting this from other customers so then even as a I suppose logically it's not isolated to this customer. So it's not application related it's not um device related it's not this so straight away we were able to kind of assist because we could see the trend elsewhere. We could also then see the trend which was more device specific operating system or OS version specific and even down to a certain variant of that OS. So it it started to paint a clear picture. We involved we were obviously working closely with the guys we involved um Google we involved the different hardware manufacturers and so on and I think we were able to slow it to a degree because I'm pretty sure it was when a device was rebooting it was initiating the update which was on the service side. So if a unit was still on so we were able to minimize more for Europe and US of the impact by that. But it was all based on the the knowledge that the guys got from APAC if you see what I mean to be able to prevent it obviously didn't help too much on the APAC side because they were the first to feel it or the first to see it. Of course but you know that it was more of right all the different parts of this what could it be? I'll be honest when it first came in it was the last thing I was thinking it would be because you know you would see in a lot of our devices whether they're Apple or Samsung you know you we get the OS updates and you know you can control it and so on. It's a lot more different in these operational devices where the enterprise devices yeah yeah typically you're pushing it you're you've done some somebody's pressed a button right typically you're and you're trying to trace what's been deployed well because unfortunately as you said it it's not sunny all the time right so it's uh we've had instances where we've pressed the wrong button and we've got to recover and so on and you learn from those mistakes and that and that's your first port that's that's your first thought process in this scenario right but there was no button press I suppose in all the the triage and the diagnostics. So it it was an external factor and then of how many external factors are in play in theory you could have been into like a driver of a certain component and that but as it turned out it was more service related back to um the Google side of things um who I must point out were actually very helpful in it in um I mean you can imagine how many Google devices there is out there, right? Or Android devices there is so I you know in this scenario when we were able to bring the right information back they were very helpful in the resolution to it. And also the different processes that Ferry's team had in place I think helped them minimize it as well and I touched on it earlier having the backup plan it mightn't be the most modern backup plan. You were laughing at my pen and paper and that's not what that's not what they did here. There was a way that the business can still operate and um they were able to implement a little bit of that as well so to minimize that downtime so to speak.

Ferry 31:39

Yeah absolutely the help of security was also very interesting because the first thing they do they they blame the device initially think hey there's a hardware which is failing so it's call Ferry again see what's uh what's happening and even then the security decided well we cannot even find that you have done any update so it was so difficult to find that glitch that was apparently made in the Google services to to find it down. And nobody even realized and Google indeed as you said then it was very supportive the manufacturers very supportive we got back um up in shape very quickly again we did have to change a few devices here and there where we couldn't solve it anymore. And that's also why we have this um process in place.

Paul 32:16

Yes they were changed exchanged in in a few uh a few days everything was sorted out again it clear it clearly shows it's not just about what the procurement the upfront procurement cost of a device it's very much around how do you support the device once it's been deployed. You know what's the complete end-to-end life cycle of when a customer like you fairy were to purchase a device through Peak Technologies and it might be a Honeywell device, a zebra device it doesn't really matter. But it's it it's very much about the after-sales care and the after-sales service through that entire supply chain so when it comes to kind of life cycle and and I want to kind of switch gears at just just now but what when it comes to life cycle and kind of collecting older devices how does the whole managed mobility piece, how did it work when you were employed by this global logistics company did you did you just kind of and I'm not going to suggest that you did it but did you just throw them out or did you make sure that you worked with a a partner that was sustainable that had really good eco credentials to take those devices back and look to reuse them and then maybe offset some of the cost of that to purchasing new devices.

Ferry 33:28

Yeah that's an interesting one because um during the exchange from Windows to uh to the Android platform we couldn't change all 12000 over one weekend so they had to go step by step location by location even if if Denis would have wanted it in one weekend we would never be able to to do it.

Paul 33:45

Sure.

Ferry 33:45

And so what we did in the end is each time keep exchanging in a certain plan. So we had a complete uh migration plans for exchanging especially at that time the Windows devices and exactly just that these old devices was very very robust. So whilst we were taking them out of one country or one station we actually could redeploy them again in other locations where the volume was going up or where they uh had still even worse devices that were stitched with uh duct tape to each other to just bear out the exchange program so we could start swapping them and that's how we exchanged the uh the Windows devices now with the sorry I I just had I I just have to mention sorry funny you say held together with duct tape.

Paul 34:23

This is this is absolutely true. I'd I've seen it with my own eyes there are devices that are literally held together with gaff tape or gaffer tape whichever part of the world you're in you'll you'll know exactly what I mean.

Ferry 34:34

But this is just a true statement right yeah it is you still see it what which whatever company you're going to you'll always find those devices if you go to a restaurant where you have these nifty 50 um tablets where you can order um from your desk even there you'll find uh duct tape um tablets even there they're so robust and especially with these brands and I think it's also difficulty for the the manufacturers that you already mentioned these devices are built to last so even if if you break them down you fall they're meant to to still work and that's what we saw a lot so we still saw a lot of locations where they had eight nine ten year old devices still working.

Paul 35:09

Wow wow that's incredible clearly uh yeah I've I've seen I've seen devices that have gone through the the entirety of a of a of a repair chain where they have been literally held together with bits of tape there in bits there's screens hanging out there's wires all over the place but I I'm I'm I'm curious to kind of understand so what what through your through this kind of life cycle process that you worked with Peak and and Zebra or Honeywell or whoever the manufacturer was, when you deployed them to different parts of the company when older devices were retired um how how did that process go?

Ferry 35:46

Yeah so we had a very close connection with the teams of of Denis so whenever we started to exchange devices even for Androids to newer Android devices we had a completely laid out program how we would do this which country which location would go at which stage so they would get the device okay this is a new device coming up uh you will receive it in week in week um 25 for example and then it would go and once they receive the new devices they would have to send back the old device to a central location somewhere in Europe. Right right and so that's how the process worked what uh Denis's team uh at that time did they start okay what is the state of the devices can they still be reused then are they fully of dick tape are they completely broken down can we still repair them or are they so good in shape that we can start reuse reusing them again so that process was each time all your alt equipment will go to one central location and that's why we do the triage and assess them for reuse or dispose them.

Denis 36:39

Yeah we we we tend to do a bit of that um I wouldn't say circular economy but certainly from an I environmental perspective uh simplifying how you might decommission equipment or decommission a product because um it gets uh particularly in uh the type of organization Ferry is talking about with multiple locations where if you have a few different ways or multiple different ways for that type of process it won't work or it doesn't work. So what the way we set it up in in in our scenario was we just used one of our facilities and we the other the the that the BAU element was being handled out of other facilities. So this was our our decommissioning facility where the units were returned, they were logged they were booked in, triaged and then depending on the the item and the process, there's an element where it might have been recycled or using any kind of we directives and so on. We kind of handle that element or or take care of that element or in some cases it might have been actually misroute it was a repair it and it was fed back in. So we were actually capturing a few other elements as well to get more devices back for the organization to be able to use.

Paul 37:46

Yeah and that's a key point it's not just about bringing the devices in it's being smart about having one place to bring devices in collecting as much data and info as you can and then disseminating that out within the peak organization for example. Yeah and then also in in your organization Ferry making sure that you've got enough devices to continue the throughput of work you needed to do bringing us back to the point that you mentioned really eloquently Denis which is uptime.

Denis 38:16

Yeah absolutely just just it's kind related not so much mobile device related but the same type of process like you talk about uh uptime but I'm I'm definitely going back a few years on this one very large uh computing company uh makes a lot of servers laptops so in their different facilities we were getting a lot of returns of a certain item so in that process we're obviously logging we're booking stuff in and I suppose we see a trend which is uh a very rugged uh device that has a certain type of damage to it over time or wear and tear so we bring this and we back to the organization and go like your your your your return of this type of unit is incredibly high compared to what we're seeing industry standards. Right? So um what are you using it for? What are you doing? You know what that type of thing. Said like if you they couldn't explain it. So said look le leave us visit some of the facilities leave us see what's happening how's it working and see if we can keep those units out there get you more uptime so to speak. And this is uh this is uh not a terminal it's like a scanning type device right so um spend some time in the production floor and uh a lot of lines a lot of production floor a lot of lines and start to work down the line to see where the the different the scanner and I'm talking hundreds there's hundreds of them being used but at an end of line process right at an end of line process we see the same thing happening across the end of line process which is basically where they package up or close some boxes or do do something right that that is now before it goes off to a different part of it. And they were using the device as the marker which is so the device was made of a certain material that would mark the cardboard. So when the when it was ready it was getting an X and it was like a rough X if you see what I mean. So it was uh being used very very creative I might add because it was leaving it was leaving a mark on the box which meant that person next knew it was complete and they could move it on what it was causing was some scan engine windows were breaking and obviously you know buttons and so on. It's a it's funny but I mean when I saw it I was like of course this is obvious what was happening here right but but but in the process we were doing without logging it and without providing the trend we wouldn't have got the chance to go into their operation and go, right, well actually now what it allowed us also was say listen why don't you just add a print and apply here or something to to fill in the area so that you get the identifier to move it on if you see what I mean. So they did but it was it's we still obviously we're still talking about it and I still still see that team across Europe it's it's a it's just one of those funny joke type things that go yeah I remember you were using yes that was it yeah exactly marker pen get a marker pen don't use a scanner I love stories like this. Now what you'll find Paul is you will not be able to scan a barcode with that. If you can mark the box with a barcode scanner all right exactly I went off at a tangent but you get the process right you get it absolutely correct very funny so Ferry it clearly I I've only got a couple couple more questions left but I I want to come back to you on this point.

Paul 41:31

Clearly when when you were working within the global logistics company that that you were part of for many many years partnerships clearly are a critical thing in order to ensure business productivity to ensure your costs are kept and managed really really well. Just help me understand what was the key takeaway for you why you had decided to instruct peak technologies and to work with them as a as a European or potential global partner for everything with your global logistics company and and and exchanging and rolling out kind of Android devices from Windows devices.

Ferry 42:09

Yeah that's an interesting well I think the main key argument and uh Peak was not the only one involved in this journey there were a couple of more vendors as you can imagine. I think the key takeaway was the speed of change is so high and you need to keep up with all the new technology there are so many things changing. We can't do it ourselves anymore. A WeLogistics company where I used to work for uh they should concentrate on delivering the packages on time on the right place. And having a complete backend system which is developing like not only anymore on a yearly level they are changing on a like a monthly or weekly level software updates are coming through you can't keep up at speed anymore. Basically apply some mobile technology look at your own phone. If you open your phone see how many updates you have had on your i on your iPhone or on your Android phone they come in nearly by the hour and it's also happening with the increase of the software they were using. So then we realized okay we can't do it anymore with the own IT departments we that we have it's becoming a very costly event especially if you each time need to deploy them into the field. We have the changing environment of the backend systems like device management with the centralization of all our processes we said okay we need to keep looking into vendors who can support us not only on a local level but also on complete European and beyond European levels. That's how this journey started and we said okay these partners that we're selecting should not just be a supplier just deliver the boxes move them all open and and you go but they need to help us they need to completely tell us how we need to manage the devices they need to tell us and support us in repairing it, shipping it, uh taking them back and making sure we have connectivity so they need to do the entire um uh ecosystem of the mobile technology and that's where these vendors came in and we said okay not just a seller you're a partner in here for guiding us and and making it all better and cheaper.

Paul 43:57

And that's that's that's a really important distinction. Have box shifters that are out there that again, you know, just give me the lowest price and I'll take as many boxes as you can give me. But then you have people like Denis and and the Peak Technologies organization, not just in in the UK and Ireland and Europe, but the global organization. And when it comes to, you know, really, really distilling down exactly what is delivered when it comes to managed mobility. Clearly Peak are kind of above and beyond, way beyond kind of that that whole kind of box shifter mentality. There's there's very much a partnership that's being offered, almost to the point of some of the things that you mentioned earlier, Denis, with you know, taking taking one of your facilities and and and turning it into a kind of inbound facility, and and all the other facilities were kind of businesses usual type facility. So, you know, how how did how did Peak evolve into this kind of managed mobility provider that Ferry and his organization selected?

Denis 44:57

Yeah, and and it's I suppose it's probably one of the solutions we do to that degree, Paul. So manage mobility, and to be honest, it's it's probably one at a larger volume when you look at the number of assets you're potentially managing or touching and so on. But but even as an organization, we do an awful lot, whether it's in pharmaceutical, medical device, retail and so on. And particularly in some of those environments, I mean it's uh millions of dollars worth of product potentially on a line that you're either ensuring a line runs or is up or you're you're responding to some sort of issues in that. So like the the footprint of the organization, not not the peak organization, I'm just saying any organization, any organization that various work with, or indeed any others are work with, if you look at the footprint of your own organization, you probably need a similar footprint as a partner. So if you're just working locally and and you know you're you're you're very region-based and so on, your partner options probably need to mirror that. If you've got multiple places, multiple locations global, your partner probably needs to mirror that. Or your OEM or whatever it is, because don't underestimate the the insights you get from the different parts of the business. Even though you might operate as a country or a territory and so on, more often than not you'll see that the insights you get as a global organization can be very valuable to to not even talking about issues, but whether it's process, procedure, you name it. The example that Ferry gave of the issue they experienced, and it's not wasn't just peak involved in that, by the way. You know, I don't think Ferry speaks very well office, but they they they have a number of other partners. But certainly the the footprint of the partners that um those type of organizations work with are more global so that uh the time they need to get those insights, they're available. It's not all the time, but at that critical time, you can lean on a company that has that footprint and you can get those insights. If you're if you're working more regional, whether it's in a province, a town, a territory, you probably need to work with someone that is that footprint also.

Ferry 46:59

Which is very challenging, uh, even for Peak at that time, and we started to involve them more and more. Also, the other vendors had the same issue. Even when you look into Europe, there are about 40 plus countries in that entire European landscape. Every country had its own challenges in terms of network connectivity, the network providers. Even some countries uh Peak had never been before, but they still had to deliver the parcels for us. So there was quite a challenge, and that's also why I strongly more and more believed in the partnership. We had to help them in telling them what to do in those countries and how to do it, and they helped us in getting more and more services provided to those. Because those people in the field in that specific country didn't have that experience of services at all before when a device was broken. They were very much used to weeks and weeks of waiting for a new device to come back, and we were shifting that to a next day service repair. And it was a complete different experience for these uh these people. Very scary because hey, I don't need spares anymore. Through companies like Peak Technologies and some others that we used, they more and more started to experience what it actually should be. It's just a tool, but when it's broken, I need to have a new one about the next day.

Paul 48:01

Exactly. And and these things don't happen overnight. So I I love what you said about collaboration and partnership. And clearly this has been a very an extremely good partnership with the global logistics organization you used to work for, and of course, Denis and his team at Peak Technologies. So just just just looking ahead now and and as we kind of bring this podcast to a to to a close, when it comes to managed mobility and certainly the experience that you've had, Ferry, when it comes to managed mobility and and kind of looking out with regard to uh MDM, looking out to you know, security, patching, things like that, looking out kind of three to five years, what would you what would you tell leaders in organizations, be it security leaders, IT leaders, purchasing, you know, whoever it is, what kind of three things or or what handful of things would you tell those leaders to look out for based on your experience? And Denis, I'll I'll ask you the same question at the end.

Ferry 48:58

Yeah, it's good. I'm just looking over my shoulders to find any glass ball over here. I unfortunately don't have it, apart from my hat over here, but no, it's um it's a good question. And you see a lot of things happening, and the speed is is even more increasing. Everybody's now jumping on the AI technology, which is giving you way more and more business intelligence data, how drivers are using the device, for example, and all the learnings they get for you doing that business. So the the mobile device are playing more and more bigger role in that. They can track and trace the GPS data on it's becoming more accurate. It will help the businesses to do more accurate deliveries, if you speak for that technology. At the same time, you also see that the manufacturers are changing, they're focusing more and more on um AI as well. How can they use all the technology better and better? Barcos system will keep staying in place for a long time, I guess. But you also see the new technologies coming up, like RFD, which is already very common in the real tier sector, in the fashion sector is already very uh common. How will it evolve in the logistics industry? I'm I'm assuming that in the next three, five years you will see more and more shipments, which are hardly scanned anymore. They will just use RVD text. I think that's you see it already happening more. I think that's also what's going on to so you will reduce the the paper, and we always spoke about paperless printing, uh scanning, those kind of things. You see a lot of things happening over there. Yeah, the device are still there to stay. I think they become way more user-driven than it was really status scanning at that time for track and trace. That will happen a lot. And in the role I had at that time, the business intelligence that you're getting over it that is becoming bigger and richer and more advanced every day. So dealing with vendors like Peak, you can really start speaking about SLAs, you really can start talking about how can we increase the durability of the device, how can we reduce the number of repairs? Those kind of things will help us in the coming years more and more. We already started that journey at that time, and it's already that's reduced a lot of services and number of repairs. And I expect to to see that change coming and more and more.

Paul 50:51

Great, thank you, Ferry. Denis, what about what about your perspective, please?

Denis 50:55

Just just and it it very touched on it there as well. Even the the evolution of an organization with the the solutions, and you you kind of started with a digital transformation piece, uh Paul, right? Like in the even where that is now to where pre-COVID we were from a digital transformation perspective. So the the technologies and the solutions we have now, whether it's in warehousing or production or what, but it's also how they interact with each other. Because you touched on RFID, you touched on fixed scanning, things like machine vision, robotics, automation. So big trend we're seeing an awful lot of is how mobility works in hand in hand with automation. So we all hear that robotics is coming to warehouses and we're you know, but what we're seeing actually more in play is yes, it is coming into warehouses for specific applications, but we've still got mobile applications. But by the way, we've also got fix station applications. So um machine vision is a great example of that where we're seeing it in um dock door scenarios or um you know line tunnel type scenarios, and the data that you use from that, presented with what you get from your mobility or your robotics and stuff, is really what brings that solution. So on its own, the the standalone robotic solution or uh a tunnel type solution brings certain value. But when you bring things like mobility in with it, it's really where you can get an extra value add. So so certainly how it evolves or that ecosystem inside in an organization with the different technologies, the kind of more newer, innovative ones that we're we're seeing as as companies transform. But to Ferry's point, I mean we're we're still seeing a lot of barcodes, right? There's a lot of barcodes out there. And you know, we'll get RFID, but that means RFID has been used in one area, barcodes have been used in another, robotics, machine vision in another. And I'd urge companies to pay particular pension to all those different parts of it to see how they can bring them together. I don't think it's going to be one size fits all.

Paul 52:58

Yeah, yeah.

Denis 52:58

I'd I I fully agree with that.

Paul 53:01

Fully agree with that. Any any final comments, gentlemen? Ferry, I'll start with you.

Ferry 53:05

No, it's it's really interesting how that uh that mobile technology world is really enhancing and speeding up more and more. And look at your own phones that you have at your own uh pocket and see how that has changed. It's becoming more used than actually your laptop or your PC is at uh at the common day. You also see them more in the industry. So it's becoming more your tool of giving guide than actually doing productivity, like uh Denis was saying. And automation comes more in play. So I'm actually looking forward to what it's bringing and what the what the manufacturers are doing. Um I think companies like Peak, they were very much a well-trusted organization we're using uh at that time. I think they become more and more a key player for a lot of logistics companies to to support them and to drive to the next levels. That's really interesting to see what's coming. Great, thank you, Very.

Denis 53:49

Denis, final comments, please. I I do want to call out one thing that that that Seri touched on there, and it's not whether it's Peak or any other organization, it's that partnership piece. You you you you treat a supplier like a supplier, they're a supplier. You get into a partnership, you will get far more results, you'll get far more uptime, you'll get far more insights. So any any organization that you're working with that's key to your supply chain or your operation or your production, try and build that partnership, and out of that will come um far more value added.

Paul 54:23

Magic. Absolutely magic. Gentlemen, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. It has been great. Thank you so much for your time and insights, and uh, I'm looking forward to when uh when you guys come up again. Denis, Ferry, thank you so much indeed. Thank you a lot, Paul. Thanks, appreciate it. So there you have it. We've explained how device management has evolved, why the shift from Windows to Android continues to reshape mobility across industries, and why data security, uptime, and strong partnerships are now essential for keeping supply chains resilient. Digital transformation isn't just a technology story, it's a human one. It's about teams working across silos, organizations building resilience, and leaders rethinking what sustainable operations really look like. A huge thank you to both Denis Conway and Ferry Spahn for bringing their real-world experience to this conversation. Insights from the front lines of implementation are exactly why we do this show. If today's discussion resonated with you, do hit subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. And if something sparked an idea for your own organization, please do share this episode with a colleague who could be facing similar challenges. My name is Paul Norford, and this has been the Connected Technologies Podcast by Peak Technologies.