Case Study: Old Dominion Fine-Tunes Its Pricing Model, Increases Driver Productivity, And Enhances Its Competitive Position With The Help Of Motorola Mobile Computers

By Barry Craver, Director of Freight Processing Applications, Old Dominion

In the past, Old Dominion drivers used paper manifests and most of the company's pricing decisions were based on averages. "We decided to create a system to capture real-time information about each freight pick up and delivery. The goal was to feed data into our pricing model for greater accuracy and to provide the track-and-trace functionality that customers were coming to expect from a leading carrier like ours," said Craver.

From the start of the project in 2000, Old Dominion planned to write the needed software application in-house. In choosing hardware, Old Dominion senior management was focused on a finding a completely integrated hand- held solution, according to Craver.

A few years after the system was implemented, Old Dominion upgraded from the original Motorola hardware to the MC9060 series of rugged mobile computers. Lisa Boles, Director of Computer Networking at Old Dominion, noted the advantages of this model. "The MC9060 has a large, bright, full-color screen which the drivers can see and use easily. It also has 802.11, so we were able to eliminate the manual process of configuring each unit in a PC cradle," said Boles.

Today, nearly 3,500 Motorola MC9060 mobile computers are used every day by Old Dominion drivers. For easy, remote management of this growing "fleet" of mobile computers, Old Dominion implemented the Motorola Mobility Services Platform (MSP).