Four Reasons to Use Honeywell Mobility Edge for Your Android Device Deployments (Part 1)

In Part 1, we will explore Reason # 1: Accelerate Deployments and Reason #2: Optimize Business Performance. In Part 2, we will explore Reason #3: Extend Lifecycle and Reason #4: Strengthen Security.

Today, many organizations have disparate devices in multiple form factors for many uses, a myriad of applications for different tasks, and complex IT infrastructure – all of which are difficult and costly to maintain. These mobile solutions are also built on different technology platforms that force companies into siloed provisioning and application support. It’s a technology minefield. Honeywell’s mobile device platform can help navigate.

Honeywell has the clarity of vision, domain expertise, and solution to your mobile device challenges: Mobility Edge™. Mobility Edge is based upon extensive research gathered from Honeywell’s global community of customers from a range of technologies. Honeywell recognized that businesses wanted a unified hardware and software platform for all form factors – one that allowed for rapid deployments, robust performance, and adaptability to changing needs.

We completely rethought our approach to meeting the challenges of supporting a mobile workforce, and Mobility Edge was the answer. This unified, dynamic platform for mobile computing is designed to:

• Accelerate Deployments
• Optimize Business Performance
• Extend Lifecycle
• Strengthen Security

Established service and support data went into the development of Mobility Edge. We optimized our mobility devices based on the work patterns of many customers and actual users to deliver more realistic testing and precise engineering requirements. Using historical insights from service data, we addressed common failure points during the design phase, making our Mobility Edge products more resilient and stable. We also mined our detailed support data to further improve and refine product quality. By providing a unified hardware and software platform with an agile approach, we can bring you more secure and reliable solutions across your operation.

Mobility Edge offers an integrated, repeatable, scalable approach to device management that is based on a common hardware and software platform. Designed for Android™, it delivers a unified platform that all software solutions are based on. Businesses can develop and deploy faster while reducing development costs.

The Mobility Edge common platform is composed of:

• Common SOM (System On Module), which includes the CPU, memory, WWAN (in selected devices), WLAN, Bluetooth®, near-field communication (NFC), and Zigbee (in selected devices).
• Common Operating System Image with support for multiple generations of Android, from Android O through Android R.
• Common Software Ecosystem that includes not just Honeywell software, but also Honeywell-approved ISVs (independent software vendors).

Together these common elements minimize your company’s cost, effort, and risk. They accelerate your time-to-value so you can start deploying devices into the hands of your mobile workers much faster. And they maximize your ROI by extending the lifecycle of your devices.

Reason #1: Accelerate Deployments

According to VDC Research¹, the average cost for IT staff to deploy a single device is $700.

In Honeywell’s view, this is unacceptable. We have the solution to slow, labor-intensive implementations: rapid deployment with Mobility Edge.

With the common platform offered by Mobility Edge, you can validate all your mobile devices, use cases, and software once, and then deploy across multiple devices in multiple form factors – faster, easier, and at lower cost.

For example, if you are a retailer, you may have a myriad of devices that are optimized for different environments such as the front of the store or backroom, and others for the distribution or fulfillment center.

With Mobility Edge, all these devices are on the same hardware and software core platform. Your one-time investment in setup, deployment, and provisioning is reusable across all devices.

Tools to Accelerate Deployments Quickly configure and deploy devices into the hands of mobile workers with a comprehensive provisioning toolkit including:

Enterprise Provisioner – Allows you to take a perfectly provisioned device and then redeploy that setup/configuration across as many devices as you wish using a barcode reader. For example, if you had 100 devices, you set up device number one. Enterprise Provisioner allows you to create a barcode that represents the provisioning information. For the remaining 99 devices, all you need to do is scan the barcode, and the devices will be provisioned automatically.

Setup Wizard – Enables you to quickly set up and configure the first device with what is known as the Golden Configuration: the settings that should be used across all your devices.

Staging Hub – Allows you to push a Golden Configuration setup to your entire fleet of devices. In contrast to the Enterprise Provisioner, which uses a barcode-reading function to provision each device, the Staging Hub allows you to see all your devices within the network and push the setup to each device.

Secure Provisioning – Part of the architecture of the product, Secure Provisioning uses cryptographic methods to ensure that each device is securely set up and unalterable by a third-party intrusion.

Android Zero-Touch Deployment – Allows IT to deploy corporate-owned devices in bulk without having to manually set up each device. Users just open the box and start using the device with management, apps, and configurations all set.

Reason 2: Optimize Business Performance

Consider the cost of a single device not being available for use during a shift. What about over the course of a year?

According to IDC², just one instance of device failure or unavailability per shift multiplied across a year can cost you $20,000 in annual support and productivity loss per mobile worker.

With Operational Intelligence, included in the Mobility Edge unified platform, Honeywell can help you avoid the high cost of an unavailable device, and help you maximize the value of your device investment.

Tools to Optimize Business Performance
Take advantage of a range of features to provide the greatest reliability and uptime from your mobility solution including:

Data Capture Tools – Honeywell devices include state-of-the-art barcode scanning capabilities and best in-class computing processor performance that streamline and error-proof work.

Wireless Tether – Stay connected to Bluetooth-enabled devices with wireless tethering that alerts you when you lose connection. For example, if your operator inadvertently lays down the device and walks away wearing a wireless headset, an alarm sounds, prompting the operator to go back and retrieve the device.

Keypad Creator – For device applications and workflows that require a non-standard data entry format, Keypad Creator allows you to create a custom keypad specifically for your application.

Battery Hot Swap – Honeywell devices support both Hot Swap and Warm Swap methods for swapping out batteries.

Software Client Pack – This suite of three business apps includes a smart Terminal Emulator for data capture and input to back-end legacy server processes. It also includes the Honeywell Launcher and Enterprise Browser to control employee access to approved apps and websites only.

Operational Intelligence – A vendor-independent asset management solution that helps you track, manage, standardize, and optimize all your mobile devices, across all your locations. The platform delivers results that have previously been unattainable:

• Reduce wasteful “No Fault Found” returns
• Right-size your spare pool inventory
• Right-place your assets
• Consolidate RMA processes into one efficient system
• Verify adherence to RMA vendor contracts

For more information about how Honeywell Mobility Edge can make a difference in your organization, contact your Honeywell account representative.

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Sources:
1. VDC Research. New Data Finds Poor Enterprise Mobility Connectivity and Performance Costs Companies $20,000 Per Year, Per Mobile Worker, December 6, 2018
2. IDC. The Business Value of Optimized Device Deployment, July 2018.