Air Liquide Healthcare

"A business portal site enables agents in remote rural areas to gain access to Dynamics GP without full access to our wide area network. Now they can enter their own transactions, reducing need for our office staff to re-key data, improving timeliness and accuracy of the data. We've also learnt that implementing a mobile solution isn't that hard!"

Dr John Falconer, IS Manager, Air Liquide Healthcare

About Air Liquide Healthcare

Air Liquide was founded in 1902 and is a world leader in industrial and medical gases and related services. Air Liquide has 130 subsidiaries in more than 70 countries, including Air Liquide Healthcare in Australia.

Problem/Goal

Paper dockets used when technicians made deliveries required data entry to update the calls on completion. Air Liquide Healthcare wanted to eliminate the dockets in order to:

• Reduce data entry workload. 
• Reduce data entry errors. 
• Eliminate missing data and lost dockets. 
• Reduce invoice mistakes and subsequent customer queries. 
• Increase asset tracking ad utilisation. 
• Improve route planning and positioning via GPS.

In addition to its own technicians, Air Liquide Healthcare has a large number of agents throughout rural Australia. These agents were not linked to Dynamics GP,which meant that more than 30% of Air Liquide Healthcare's transactions were being carried out on paper. Air Liquide wanted to:

• Reduce data entry from agents paperwork. 
• Improve agent data accuracy. 
• Provide capacity for agents to answer their customer queries. 
• Provide more efficient customer service.

Solution

In 2005, Air Liquide Healthcare implemented a mobile solution to capture the field information on a portable device and automatically update Dynamics GP. Air Liquide Healthcare used industrial grade handheld computers as the field device, Microsoft CE as the operating system and Spectrax to interface with Dynamics GP.

Air Liquide Healthcare implemented a separate secure virtual private network (VPN) to link to a new network zone, creating a business portal through which agents can gain access to Dynamics GP without full access to Air Liquide Healthcare's full wide area network(WAN).

Benefits/Outcomes

• Paper dockets have been eliminated. 
• Reduced data entry and associated staff cost. 
• Improved data accuracy. 
• Technicians are now better able to offer additional services with data capture in the field, such as medical assessments.
• Agents are able to enter their own transactions into Dynamics GP leading to increased accuracy. 
• Improved timeliness of data entry with the elimination of delays in mailing paperwork. 
• Reduced need for Air Liquide Healthcare data entry staff: this is expected to lead to a cost saving equivalent to 3-4 FTE staff. 
• Better asset tracking. 
• Reduced data errors leading to improved invoicing, fewer credits and less customer queries. 
• Anticipated savings due to better asset management are expected to be around $30,000 per annum.