In the propane industry, where deliveries are a daily mainstay of activity there must be a better resource to maximize this dynamic profession, and get real-information about the activities of each employee. Indeed, the purpose of having a mobile workforce management solution - for which the technology already exists, thanks to the global proliferation of smartphones and tablets - is to enhance productivity, uncover lasting savings, maintain

communication with workers and make this process economical, efficient, secure and easy-to-use.

For, the current system is, at best, incomplete: Drivers may have their own smartphones, but a central office or manager has no way of tracking the speed with which deliveries are made, the number of stops (to meet with current or prospective clients) made within a given day, or whether an existing fleet of trucks is too large or small to satisfy

the daily assignments of a business dedicated to delivering propane to a variety of applications and users.

I write these words from experience, as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for DigitalDispatcher.com, where I have the privilege of unifying (and thus transforming) the way smartphones and tablets, with an innovative application, can give business owners and managers all the information they need to track the activity of their drivers, their given location, the average time spent delivering and confirming a client's receipt of product, and the

instantaneous relay of that data to the office.

A sidebar: This statement is a summary of, in my opinion, an attractive alternative to the current system, which

either uses antiquated but expensive technology, or has yet to embrace the full power of mobile communications.

My experience in this industry, which reflects the feedback and commentary of drivers, managers and business owners, is that there is room for improvement -- that the lack of real-time information may be responsible for higher fuel costs, poorly coordinated routes for delivery of propane, as well as a general sense that there is a disconnect

between employers and employees throughout the course of a typical workday.

In contrast to the option described above, some companies equip workers with old generation “hand held computers or truck mounted computers” extremely expensive devices, which may allow for a digital signature (to confirm

receipt of propane fuel) or for some minor notation by a driver. The problem with this scenario is twofold.

First, the technology itself, while innovative at the time (many years ago, which made the devices cost up to $7,000), is, compared to an iPhone or Android (with a subsidized plan) very primitive. Few, if any, of these old generation cab or hand held computers have wireless capabilities, so a driver cannot transmit delivery or receipt of material in real-time. At best, a van may be retrofitted to have Wi-Fi, where the old technology (with an expensive docking station) may slowly send information to the office. This option excludes all the existing applications, many of which are free or preinstalled on most smartphones, like GPS, maps, traffic alerts, voice-activated commands, a camera, messaging and access to the Internet.

Now, let us further reveal the inadequacies of this system by reviewing a driver's usual workday. As he uses the old solution in-cab or hand held computer to confirm deliveries, it is not until the end of the day, when the driver returns

to an office or depot, that he then docks the device or uploads the day's content via wifi into a shared database.

Many deficiencies should now be obvious, such as: Despite containing delivery times, locations of stops and records of receipt, an employer has no idea what (or where) his driver is doing at any given moment; and, in addition, should the driver accidentally damage the old generation computer - if he were to spill water or coffee on the device - all of

the day's information, everything contained on that piece of hardware, is irretrievable.

Second, these old generation computers only provide intelligence after the fact. Which is to say, only after all this content is part of a shared database, and only after a manager spends countless hours analyzing these reams of documents (because he has no real-time information about the location or productivity of his drivers), can he discover - shockingly - that his business may have too many drivers, consume too much fuel and have no coordinated and efficient means of sending drivers from one designated point to another.

Third and less widely discussed is the risky nature of the old generation technology. Most old generation in-cab or hand held computers contain the entire customer base in its hard drive memory. When a delivery driver accidentally

leaves the device on the bumper and drives off the entire list of customers can be at risk. Of course if a driver were to pawn or sell the device via an online venue (a quick check of eBay will show the potential for risk here) the company can quickly lose control of its most valuable asset. To make matters worse, most of the old technology

solutions are not equipped with a remote kill switch which would if installed eliminate much of this risk.

The alternative is both more affordable - it simply requires giving drivers a smartphone or tablet - and effective, because, with the right application, a manager can see the location of his drivers (displayed on a computer map), the location of all deliveries (color-coded in green, to indicate they are completed, and red, to denote yet to be delivered), the frequency with which they make deliveries, the average distance between deliveries or pick-ups, and whether there are too many drivers performing the same tasks in the same area. The latter is essential information because it can immediately save a company tens of thousands of dollars in fuel, insurance, maintenance, liability fees, licensing and other sundry costs.

To be clear, this alternative is about two-way communication, not the imposition of Big Brother onto a mobile workforce. If anything, this application - which is secure and easy-to-use - allows highly productive workers, people who may otherwise have been overlooked for meritorious service or a raise, to generate attention by simply doing their job. In other words, technology highlights - through the quick accessibility to data, on a worker-by-worker

basis - the truth, to both employers and employees.

There is no need for cajoling, disputation or ambiguity; this tool can underscore an employee's talents, or it can educate a manager about ways to better deploy equally gifted workers who, through no fault of their own, may have a route (for the delivery and pick-up of propane) that is too disjointed and meandering for anyone to successfully exploit. The point is that we can do better - we must do better - because the status quo, with its lack of information

and gross inefficiencies, translates into wasted dollars.

That money can be more smartly directed towards customer service or superior technology or quicker delivery times. Everything rests on that simple principle of communication: Make it available, for workers and managers, and

the results will speak for themselves -- unrivaled achievement. Welcome to the next great era of mobile technology.