The project was designed to transform Loomis by capturing Real Information in Real Time to reduce risk & cost, improve accuracy, track performance against SLAs, and drive increased accountability throughout a 200-location 8,000+ person company. The technology/process elements were as follows:

Deployment of 2,000+ Motorola cellular Enterprise Digital Assistants (EDAs, or "trackers" in the parlance of our drivers) in the back of every Loomis armored vehicle. Similar to the major courier services (FedEx, UPS) the EDA application tracks packages by delivery/pickup point and records signatures. The scope of this project, however, goes beyond traditional tracking. Loomis also tracks WHAT the packages contains (total $ value, media type (currency, coin, check, stamps, etc.) and denomination (# of 20s, 10s, etc.). These Windows Mobile EDAs use a SOA layer to update an Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) ERP system.

Establishment of a Siebel-based Customer Contact Center (CCC) in Tempe, AZ. This system is integrated into EBS and allows customers to call, email, or use a website to enter and track issues or orders. The CCC also tracks overall performance against customer SLAs, and generates regular scorecards for management review. One interesting technology perspective relating ot the CCC is that the call-center telephony (IVR, ACD, CTI) relies not on in-house gear but is sourced from Oracle as a SAAS offering.

Extension of the CCC throughout Loomis branches so customer issues can be assigned to 900+ escalation groups based on customer/product/geography. Each group contains SMEs plus two levels of management. When an issue gets assigned to a group, the SME must respond within a time defined by the particular customer/product SLA. Failure to respond with the SLA escalates the issue one management level; a second failure escalates a second level.

Conversion of the Sales team from Salesforce.com to Oracles CRM On-Demand. This was a precursor to integrating Sales data with Siebel service data and EBS order, fulfillment, and billing data using an Oracle connector (AIA) to ensure we sell what we can service and service what we sell. Again, the interesting technical details is the integration of on-premise systems and on-demand (SAAS) systems.

How did the project improve everyone's' lives? It allowed Loomis messengers (the armed employees who transport cash) to minimize time spent outside the safety of their trucks, thus improving their safety. As a corollary to that answer, we can point to a reduced chance of a robbery and the monetary loss to Loomis as a result of reducing premise time. Another corollary to the answer above, reducing premise time reduces carbon emissions: less premise time = less time a big Diesel truck spends idling (for safety reasons, Loomis cant cut the engines during stops.) 

It gave Loomis the ability to know exactly what IS on a truck (as opposed to whats SUPPOSED to be on a truck) which improves the ability to mitigate risk.

It saves the customer time. Previously, when they would query Loomis, they potentially had to wait hours for answers (sometimes wait days for deeper research requests) They can now get their questions answered  literally in seconds - by the CCC, based on Real Information in Real Time. Also, branch staff used to spend many man-hours digging through paper records to answer questions; questions that are now answered by the CCC from computerized records.

In short, this project improves crew safety, reduces pollution, saves labor in our branches, provides better/faster information to customers, and improves billing accuracy. 

A few years prior, Loomis had In fact tried to launch a similar initiative. They selected less expensive and less capable technology, and the project failed to reach its goals. Motorola's hardware (MC70 Handheld Mobile Computer) combines the power of a cell phone, PDA, computer, scanner and imager in the hands of Loomis' drivers. Designed to withstand all-day everyday use in nearly any environment. It also delivers true anywhere anytime wireless WAN/LAN/PAN voice and data communications, including superior voice functionality, data capture and the power to run nearly any application, including Windows Mobile, were supported in the 12 countries in which Loomis does business, and had excellent factory support and VAR support. They also had built-in bar-code scanners and signature capture screens. The solution automates the delivery method and transmits the electronic date, time and Proof of Delivery (POD) back to the Oracle ERP system in real-time via a WAN AT&T network. Loomis system eliminates time at each stop, reducing risk of robbery while increasing worker productivity. It also ensures customers receive accurate, real-time information about money deliveries (for example, POD requests which previously took four days now take five minutes), increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Yes

Yes

30 years ago a banking visionary said "information about money is becoming almost as important as money itself." 

A supply chain or logistics network is the system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. What this means in the context of the currency supply chain is that banks, treasury organizations, governments, and merchants all devote not-insignificant resources to moving and repositioning cash throughout the currency supply chain, which itself consists of end-users (retailers and merchants), banks branch locations, ATM networks, vault and regional distribution centers and back to end-users) 

As banking (like everywhere else) continues to be transformed by evolutions and advancements in mobile technology, Loomis business is buffeted by external factors among them being very volatile energy costs, changes in the way retailers handle transactions, and technology developments that lead towards increased automation of cash-handling and logistics functions. As a result, armored cash transit providers or secure cash logistics companies such as Loomis are developing new products and services that go way beyond safely transporting and processing currency. The common thread which ties all of our new offerings together is they are all designed to give Loomis retail, bank and treasury customers the Real Information in Real Time data and insight they need. Without a successful deployment of Motorola's technology, none of it would be possible. This not only enables Loomis to reduce risk & cost, improve accuracy, track performance, and drive increased accountability throughout a 200-location 8,000+ person company, it also helps to strengthen ties to their partner organizations and customers, open new sources of revenue, and increase their existing revenue streams.

In short, this project improves crew safety, reduces vehicular pollution, saves labor in our branches, provides better/faster information to customers, and improves billing accuracy. It does a little of everything. 

Insert Quotes:

"This system will let us go from resolving 2% of customer calls on the first call to resolving 40% of them."

"The trackers get rid of route paperwork and its hassle."

"I can get answers to my questions in one place instead of calling all over the company."

To our knowledge nobody in our industry has automated the cash supply chain from beginning to end. 

Our project starts with an ERP that stores all order, customer, billing, and SLA data in one place. 

It adds real-time data capture on the front end and an integrated Contact Center on the back end. 

The contact center can answer many questions instantly, which is quite an innovation in our industry. Even more importantly the Contact Center serves as the nexus of a process for quickly answering complex questions and providing special services to customers. It does this by assigning tasks to hundreds of specialists throughout the Loomis branch network and managing their responses for timeliness and quality.

Add to that customer self-service portals for incidents and (soon) invoices and the integration of the Sales process with those of fulfillment and billing, and you have true end-to-end automation of a complex process.

The scope was ambitious (I'd even say "audacious"): 2,000+ EDAs, 900+ escalation groups (at least 3,000 people) across 200 locations, a Siebel call center & outsourced VoIP system, and a new Sales automation tool;

The mixture of technology was extreme: Windows Mobile handhelds talking to Oracle EBS via BizTalk and proprietary SOA connectors; a purpose-built handheld UI running a casually-connected application that does signature capture and bar-code scanning; integration among a on-premise Cisco VoIP system, a Siebel Contact Center, and a hosted (SAAS) telephony platform including IVR and CTI; an on-demand SFA system integrating with an on-premise CRM/fulfillment/billing. Note that except for the core ERP system everything else was new (VoIP, hosted telephony, Contact Center, SFA application, handhelds, etc.)

The time and budget constraints were tight: This was all done in 18 months with a tiny staff and many other projects underway.

Some of the obstacles encountered included:

a. Getting Oracle and Microsoft technology to work well together;
b. Customizing CRM to handle our complex escalations and getting hundreds of employees trained to interact with the escalation system;
c. Getting buy-in throughout the organization and with customers for huge process changes;
d. Working with AT&T to get the secure wireless network (APN) working properly with our technology stack;
e. Working with a technology team that stretched from Houston to Stockholm (Global HQ) to Göteborg Sweden (software architects) to India (coders).

We had several obstacles:

a. We had tried doing this twice before and both times abandoned the project due to technology or funding limitations.
For this project we spent up-front time picking appropriate technology and designing an integrated architecture that allowed information to be used in many places once it was collected. These choices enabled a better business case to be designed.

b. End-users on the trucks and in the branches hate technology (or, technology is too hard to use). 
We designed a custom user interface tailored to the needs of the users, so it made sense to them. And we designed the application to simplify their jobs, rather than just collect management information.

c. Customers don't want to talk to a Call Center; they want to talk to someone in a branch who "knows the answer.' 
Our Call Center team has access to real-time information stored in our ERP system, so they have accurate information at their fingertips and can answer many questions in seconds (faster than finding the right branch person and waiting for that person to sign on and look answers up).

Exceeded

Our customers can now get more accurate information in a more timely manner. Better information should lead them to make better decisions about managing their cash and thereby save them money.

Availability of accurate real-time data about a key aspect of our business will affect many Loomis applications and processes, from customer service to staff scheduling to risk management to finance.

Our main user base is our "Messengers": men and women who wear a uniform and carry a weapon as they pick up and deliver cash to customers. Their acceptance of STS has been phenomenal. After a day or so of training in the new process, they never want to see paper again.