Food Service Case Study

Jackson, Mississppi is home to one of the largest contract food services companies in the United States with 170 cities nationwide and 4,000 employees. Supported by an innovative approach to food services technology, the company provides cafeteria management services to corporations, hospitals, and government facilities, and in many states is the supplier of choice for the Meals on Wheels government program to supply nutritious dietary options to the elderly in need.

Challenge

In 1999, the company sought to automate the capture of proof-of-delivery (POD) signatures for meals delivered under their Meals on Wheels contracts; capturing and archiving the signatures was a compliance requirement for all of these contracts. PDAs seemed a logical choice for the automation, but after years of costly IT support and huge investments in hardware, fundamental problems emerged. The most costly problem was the reliability of the field devices: the lifespan of even ruggedized devices proved to be vastly overrated. Acting as a repair depot was costly in many aspects: shipping, maintaining parts and replacement inventory, IT and logistics support. But perhaps the most significant problem was adoption: a high percentage of the meal recipients refused to sign the devices, citing fears of the security of their signatures or a simple physical inability to hold the stylus.

Solution

In 2004, the company approached looking for a solution which would replace their costly PDA-based system, but would still meet their contract compliance requirements, would be easy for field personnel to use, and would be easily adopted by the meal constituents. Seemingly a tall order, but they were met with products to provide simple and cost-effective structured document storage in the Jackson headquarters, and a system to provide intuitive document scanning and submission in the Meals on Wheels contract fulfillment locations.

Each morning, delivery drivers print their "signature sheets", carefully planned meal delivery instructions, pick tickets, and signature slips all in one, with eight "slips" per page. Armed with a clipboard, their sheets for the day, standard ink pens, and a truck full of ready-to-deliver meals, the drivers would set out for the day, following the sheets from top to bottom, delivering meals, and accepting signatures. Once back in the office, each driver takes their signature sheets, loads them into a departmental-grade scanner's sheet feeder, and presses a single button on the screen. The site manager then files away the day's signature slips in case they are ever needed or audited.
The signature slips are received instantly via a secure .Net web service in the Jackson office by the system, which splits the eight signature slips into separate pages for discrete indexing and storage. A barcode on each slip is interpreted to streamline the process, and statistics are gathered to provide feedback for improving the process. The company also has written a suite of reports to help identify and track problems and provide operational feedback.