Air-Trak's Cloudberry Creates Paperless Mobile Office for Caterpillar Dealer; Integrated System for Tracking and Communications Saves 100 Hours a Week in Staff Time

Business Wire, Jan 4, 2005

SAN DIEGO -- Air-Trak, Inc., a developer of the Cloudberry GPS tracking and communications system, announced today that Michigan CAT, a Caterpillar dealer, has integrated its office systems with Cloudberry to create a mobile office for service technicians. With wireless tracking and communications, Michigan CAT handles more service calls, reduces office staff time, speeds collection of receivables, and improves cash flow.

Michigan CAT integrated Cloudberry with its Dealer Business System (DBS) to eliminate redundant paperwork. Cloudberry is a full-featured, easy-to-use GPS tracking and communications system that enables forms and reports generated by Caterpillar's DBS and Service Technician Workbench software to be transmitted wirelessly between CAT and service vehicles equipped with laptop computers. This paperless reporting system dramatically accelerates billing cycles while providing more accurate and timely reporting and historical data.

"Our widely-dispersed crew is now more productive and focused on serving our customers," said Mike DeMuro, product support manager of Michigan CAT. "By transmitting scheduling, service reports, and parts orders wirelessly to and from the field, we now have a virtually paperless system."

To link the DBS and Cloudberry, Michigan CAT uses an e-mail template in Microsoft Outlook that includes all of the information needed for scheduling and creating work orders. Michigan CAT personnel simply drag data from the DBS into an e-mail for wireless transmission by Cloudberry. The technicians' final service reports and daily time tickets are also sent via the wireless Cloudberry system. Service reports are sent as an XML attachment that can be uploaded without manually typing the documents' content into the DBS.

The Michigan CAT-Cloudberry Mobile Office achieves several tangible benefits:

--Increased productivity and revenue hours;

--Reduced staff time, saving approximately 100 hours per week in total staff time;

--Timely parts ordering directly from technicians' laptops;

--Accelerated invoicing and cash flow;

--Secure, accurate service information;

--Seamless integration using familiar forms and procedures.

Michigan CAT also benefited from Cloudberry's support of both cellular and satellite networks. This guarantees an all-digital wireless network with 100% coverage, while minimizing airtime costs by using the lowest cost service available. Data gathered from the field can be easily integrated into a back-end system due to Cloudberry's open, XML-based Application Program Interface (API). To read the full case study, visit http://www.air-trak.com/docs/success/success04.pdf.> About Air-Trak, Inc.

Air-Trak helps companies with mobile resources use location information to make informed business decisions. Based in San Diego, the company's Cloudberry GPS tracking and messaging system offers unique advantages in scalability, versatility, and functionality not found in other commercial products. These include the ability to develop custom applications, integrate real-time tracking data into enterprise and third-party software, and operate over a variety of networks and mobile devices. Additional information is available at www.air-trak.com.