Project: Custom Mobile Application Development
Client: Recreational Vehicle Manufacturer
Our customer, a leading recreational and utility vehicle manufacturer, has an extensive consumer dealer network that inspects, maintains and services its vehicles.
Challenge: Dealers Using Inefficient Paper Check-In Process
The company was looking for a way to expedite and automate the check-in process for the vehicles when they are taken to a dealer. Paper forms were being used to collect data such as consumer and vehicle information, and document the condition of the vehicle and its components upon check-in. The company wanted accurate documentation of a vehicle's condition at check-in standardized across its dealer network, and wanted to establish a database for this purpose.
Solution: Check-In Solution Needs to Accomodate Different Scenarios and Devices
The data gathered during check-in varies depending on the type of vehicle and situation, so the check-in solution needed to provide dependent form fields for this purpose. The data will then be submitted to a new enterprise-wide database, developed by the company's internal team, which gives the company visibility into all its dealers' activity. Dunn Solutions Group, experts in custom and web application development, was chosen to help the company develop the vehicle check-in solution. Although developing a native mobile app was considered, the variety of mobile devices utilized by dealers would require several mobile apps be deployed for the various mobile platforms. The Dunn Solutions Team helped the company determine that a custom website app would be the most versatile and cost effective solution.
The Team leveraged highly functional and common modern web technologies such as: HTML 5, JavaScript, jQuery and ASP.NET MVC (Model-View-Controller), to build a cross platform website solution that is optimized for mobile access using popular devices and browsers. The solution features a mobile camera capability that allows images to be captured directly from the check-in website. A barcode scanner was also integrated into the site to capture and access the vehicle identification numbers (VIN). Form data can be saved, then completed and submitted at a later time, while any errors in submission are noted on the form without losing the data and having to start all over.
Result: Custom Web Application Delivers Network Wide Visibility into Dealer Vehicle Activit
The dealers are now able to expeditiously check-in the company's vehicles for inspection, repair and maintenance using the mobile web application. The mobile data capture eliminates the need to note and later enter the information. The documented and detailed check-in process helps eliminate erroneous or false damage claims for the dealers. Detailed vehicle data is now available to the company from across the dealer network.
