Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Roto-Rooter Taps Wireless IT to Dispatch Plumbers With Motorola's A-GPS

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 19:20:28 -0500

Roto-Rooter Taps Wireless IT to Dispatch Plumbers

By Bob Brewin
JANUARY 20, 2003

No one in need of a plumber wants to
wait long for help to arrive, which is why
Roto-Rooter Inc. plans to use advanced
wireless technology to automate
dispatch functions for the 1,500
plumbers and drain cleaners at its
company-owned operations.

Steve Poppe, Roto-Rooter's CIO, said
the Cincinnati-based subsidiary of
Chemed Corp. will also rely on the new
wireless system to manage customer
billing through the use of mobile credit
card terminals and portable printers.

Poppe said the automated billing should
reduce the bank fees paid by
Roto-Rooter, which has annual revenue
of about $280 million—with upward of
$80 million coming through credit card
purchases. Poppe declined to specify the expected savings, except to say that they should
be
"significant." Nor would he disclose the cost of the project.

Roto-Rooter is building its wireless system around dispatch application software developed
by
Minneapolis-based Gearworks Inc. Gearworks, which will announce the project this week, is
also
hosting the applications and linking them to Roto-Rooter's internally developed
back-office billing and
customer systems.

The wireless system also includes ruggedized Motorola Inc. mobile data phones that are
equipped
with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. Data transmissions will be sent to field
workers via
Nextel Communications Inc.'s wireless network, which supports transfer rates of 20K to 40K
bit/sec.

Poppe said Roto-Rooter plans to start deploying the phones to users next quarter. By then,
he added,
the company will have picked a vendor for the portable printers, which will be connected
to the phones
via Bluetooth short-range wireless technology.

Weston Henderek, an analyst at ARS Inc. in La Jolla, Calif., said he expects most of the
growth in
wireless data applications to come from businesses like Roto-Rooter with large staffs of
field service,
delivery or sales workers.

Gearworks CEO Keith Lauver said the company used XML code that's delivered to the Motorola

phones as Java applets to customize its Etrace software for Roto-Rooter. The applets could
also run
on other mobile devices, such as handheld PCs, he added.

That flexibility was essential to Roto-Rooter so it would have the option of switching to
different devices
or wireless network operators, Poppe said.

Lauver said the GPS receiver built into Motorola's phones is a key component of the
dispatch system.
The GPS-derived location of each field worker, pinpointed to within 100 feet, will be
displayed on a
map that workers at Roto-Rooter's dispatch centers can access on an extranet-based Web
page.

Once dispatchers identify the worker closest to a customer calling for service, they will
send a
message with the customer's address to that employee's phone, Poppe said. When the job is
completed, the Gearworks software will guide the worker through the billing process and
generate a
Java-based invoice that can be printed in the field, he added.

TECHNOLOGY DETAILS
      Roto-Rooter’s wireless dispatch and billing system
      includes:

       Motorola’s i58sr GPS-equipped data phone

       Gearworks’ Etrace dispatch software

       A mobile credit card reader and portable Bluetooth
      printer

       Nextel’s 20K to 40K bit/sec. data network

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