Summary
In this episode of the FourthSquare Solutions podcast, Kerry Boudreaux speaks with Travis Cotton from RF-SMART about the critical role of supply chain management, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. They discuss the importance of mobile solutions in enhancing efficiency and accuracy in supply chain processes, the various industries that can benefit from these innovations, and a case study involving a public-sector project. The conversation highlights the expertise behind RF-SMART and the significance of understanding client needs to provide tailored solutions.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Guest Introduction
01:59 The Supply Chain Management Lifecycle
05:57 Industries Benefitting from Mobile Supply Chain Solutions
09:18 Case Study: Public Sector Project in Boise
13:19 Benefits of Automating Supply Chain Processes
16:10 RF-SMART and Oracle Can Help Hearing Impaired and Sight Impaired Workers
18:35 Hardware and Software Solutions from RF-SMART
21:14 The Expertise Behind RF Smart
23:40 Conclusion
Welcome and Guest Introduction
Kerry Boudreaux
Hi, and welcome to another episode of the FourthSquare Solutions podcast. Again, I’m Kerry Boudreaux and I’m Senior Vice President of Sales at FourthSquare. I am super excited. We’ve got a juicy subject today, supply chain management. My guest is Travis Cotton from RF-SMART. Travis, welcome to the podcast.
Travis Cotton
Kerry, thank you so much. Glad to be here.
Kerry Boudreaux
Yes, and I am super happy to have you here. So, Travis, tell me a little bit about what your role is at RF-SMART.
Travis Cotton
Yeah, so at RF-SMART, I have the position of Partner Engagement Executive, which means that I manage the relationships we have to our SI partners, such as FourthSquare, and then certain verticals within Oracle, from public sector to energy utilities, and make sure that we’re all on same page when we go into sales cycles, all the way through implementation.
Kerry Boudreaux
So let’s take that a step further. What exactly does RF-SMART do within supply chain management?
Travis Cotton
Great question. RF-SMART is really the mobile solution for supply chain within Oracle Cloud. Everything from barcoding, labeling, hardware, and then mobile transacting of inventory and asset modules within Oracle Cloud. So, it’s full suite. We want to make sure that they’re supported, our clients as well as our SIs, from beginning of implementation all the way through the lifecycle of the client from a mobile perspective.
The Supply Chain Management Lifecycle
Kerry Boudreaux
Awesome. So, you know, during the COVID pandemic, supply chain became a household word, right? Nobody really knew what supply chain was, but as, you know, as toilet paper and eggs and chicken and all of that became very hard to get, we soon learned what the value of supply chain and good supply chain management really meant, right?
But let’s give the audience for those folks that are tuning-in who really don’t quite understand supply chain and supply chain management, can you kind of share with the audience what all supply chain encompasses?
Travis Cotton
Absolutely. And I think you’re right, especially during the pandemic, things got heated. It’s a juicy topic. It became important not only what type of eggs, but the chain of custody of which chicken did it come from, which farm all the way through the full process. And I think in supply chain, a lot of people do think it’s either procurement or it’s shipping or it’s one piece.
When we see this life cycle of supply chain from sourcing all the way through the creation of something you’re making in manufacturing. For the public sector could be something that you’re tracking as an asset, but truly it can be this full life cycle from gathering, supporting, shipping out, or maintaining. So there’s a lot of different legs and that’s why I love it. It doesn’t get boring. You know, there’s so many spaces to fall in love with it and go, there’s a unique question here. How do we solve it? And that’s really what keeps me engaged with supply chain.
And I’m maybe a bit on the nerdy side, but I think Kerry you and I tell a good story and we make it exciting for people that might be newer to the topic.
Kerry Boudreaux
Absolutely. So let’s dig a little bit deeper here. So Oracle is one of those powerhouses in supply chain management. They have a super product that they deliver to the market. Share with the audience how RF-SMART ties into Oracle supply chain, or really any other supply chain software and application for that matter, because correct me if I’m wrong you’re really kind of vendor agnostic correct?
Travis Cotton
So we do have a couple of different verticals. We have a NetSuite arm, an Oracle Cloud arm, as well as some JDE and Microsoft 360. So we have some on-prem as well. But as it relates to Oracle Cloud, when you’re thinking of the layout of certain types of customers, they could be anywhere. It could be receiving at a dock, could be receiving at a warehouse, could be receiving, we call it out in the wild, out in the field. And so those points of contact, we don’t want to either miss time by waiting to go log into a computer to make sure those transactions are in time.
We really want to be able to say, hey, point of transaction, how can we receive here? Point of transaction, how can we print a label here? Point of transaction, how do we cycle count here as opposed to doing it maybe on paper, things like that? So what we want to do is that mobile extension of Oracle Cloud and say, know, FourthSquare is creating a great product in Oracle Cloud. How do we make that shine even brighter by saying, where can we use what they’ve built and push that out to where an end user could potentially be?
So we really want to see a lower lag of time from when it happens to when it gets logged into Oracle. And that’s where we get to see those windows of maybe accuracy increase, as well as user experience. It’s easier for them to not keep track of all these things throughout the day, but in real time say, happening right now, let’s do it right now. And then when we get back to our desk, we see it transacted properly.
That’s really where we get to come and be that arm of where you find yourself. RF-SMART can support you there and pull you back into order.
Industries Benefitting from Mobile Supply Chain Solutions
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, awesome. So share with me some, if I’m an organization, an agency, and I’m sitting at my desk wondering, do I need RF-Smart? Do I need to upgrade? Do I need to transform my supply chain? What are some of those pain points that I’m going to be feeling that would say, hey, now is the time I need to upgrade my supply chain management system.
Travis Cotton
Yeah, great question. So I think it comes with, you know, the first thing that to my mind is during COVID. I think there was a lot of questions that became, how do we do this maybe when the industry or the temperature around this changes? You know, that could be new compliance, like we’re seeing in life sciences. I’ve seen a lot of questions about how do you regulate, how do you stay properly or more healthy in line with what is asked of the industry?
Another thing that I see is just outdated things, you know, glued together, taped around, and it’s worked for 30 years, but now that the company’s grown. no, the only person that knew that was Brenda and Brenda left last year. So what to do now when this goes down? How we have a new location, how do we grow? So really that’s where I see Oracle coming in and saying, hey, when you add a location or when you’re growing or when you want to take a step closer to compliance, when those risks or those needs arise, RF-SMART is able to say, yep, we’ll go with you. I think there’s a lot of questions that seemingly get pushed to the back burner. And then my hope is that we get them transitioning to Oracle Cloud, transition to RF-SMART before something that happens that could really negatively impact the business.
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, you mentioned a word there, compliance. And I’m thinking of industries and verticals, maybe like healthcare, where it’s critical where you have items that have a shelf life. And you’ve got to know when those things expire and what you’re going to do with it. And when you can, that, am I thinking along the right line there?
Travis Cotton
Absolutely. And especially, you know, when we have items that do expire or, uh, you know, to the cost, items that cannot be used, that when we see those bottom lines get impacted and we can impact that, that’s where we get excited because we go, Hey, not only is this a win for you, but we get to see how we can kind of apply what we’re thinking to other people in the same situation, to other clients and say, you know, if this is probably happening to you, especially someone like FourthSquare, you’re seeing it other places.
That expertise allows them to go, maybe I’m not sure exactly how much I’m losing. Maybe I’m not sure exactly what’s expiring and being lost or maybe misplaced until someone like FourthSquare and we come in and we go, okay, we’ve got some experience, we’ve got some expertise. Let us guide you and be with you through this process. So I think that’s kind of the new eyes, the new perspective that we can bring together and say, hey, you’re not in this alone, Mr. Client.
Let’s sit down and just go through your pain points, not generic, but specific, and say, how can we close these together and make you the best company that you can be?
Case Study: Public Sector Project in Boise
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah. So you and I actually worked on a unique project together and it was actually in public sector. And most people are thinking, wow, how could a public sector agency need, you know, supply chain management and, and, but share with the audience, you and I worked on a, on a transit authority out in Boise, Idaho. So kind of take us through that story and how you and I came together on our end. The agency bought an asset management solution, but they extended that to supply chain management. Kind of share with the audience what we did there.
Travis Cotton (09:37.653)
Yeah, so at the beginning, Kerry and I got together and we’re talking about this this customer and we really wanted to get honest about what did they need and maybe what they don’t. Because ultimately my goal is that we help the customer make an informed decision. Hopefully it’s us. That’s the that’s the joy of it, but we really want the customer to make a decision and move forward in their process the best possible. So when we got together, we did a discovery and said OK, what things could matter to this client and what things do we have that could be pulled and beneficial there?
For this specific client, we were about four-five months out from their go live intended date when RF-SMART said, hey, we think this is going to be a great project, a great benefit. So we hopped in and like you mentioned from asset maintenance, meter tracking, meter reading for those vehicles and that trends of authority.
We did those in a rapid implementation, but then to go live together, mobile and Oracle at the same time, that’s where I get to see the excitement of it to say, we don’t have to wait a year. We don’t have to wait months. But when we use Oracle, now we can go mobile. And to see that play out as like one handshake, that’s what I get excited about. And that’s what in the public sector, there’s a lot of eyes, a lot of committees, and a lot of hoops at times. And then we can say, hey, at one time, we’re just going to pull you through this together.
It brings a lot of peace. It lowers the heart rate quite a bit. And ultimately that client is very happy with what we were able to do together and looking forward to more projects that are similar. So very, very excited about how that project went and is going.
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, so I am excited too. We actually went live on asset management and I know that the customer is super happy. And so we’ll spend a little more time on that. What other verticals, what other industries do you see that really benefit, you know, from going mobile and upgrading and transforming their supply chain?
Travis Cotton
Yeah, that’s a great question. And truly the victory is when Oracle is in a space and when we can say they’re benefiting from Oracle, if they have inventory or assets, then our smart or mobile provider can be used. And so that’s where we get to see the industries have certain specifics included. We talked a little bit about healthcare earlier with the pandemic, healthcare is a large one as well as life sciences. And then the public sector is one that we’ve been seeing just grow substantially the last year over year and really getting excited about that. You kind of think of the plate of where industries have inventory or assets. The world’s kind of your oyster, everything from hospitality and gaming to consumer packaged products and goods to energy or oil or drilling. So really, we can step in and say, if there’s inventory, if there’s assets, how can we make this a more automated, a more rapid and a more accurate solution.
Benefits of Automating Supply Chain Processes
Kerry Boudreaux
Sure. So, would you say are the top maybe two or three benefits to completely automating the supply chain and taking it mobile with RF-SMART? What are some of those areas for the immediate ROI? What do you see from your perspective?
Travis Cotton
First, I say number one is accuracy. You when you think of those previous workflows, previous solutions, previous functions that were used prior to bringing in a mobile solution, it’s usually either writing down or holding onto that information and then batching it later, or trying to scribble something on a piece of paper, scribble something on a box. And that works for a space, but when you’re growing or when you’re trying to say, how do we improve efficiencies?
Then a lot of those little things, the accuracies fall apart a little bit because you’re trying to just go fast. You’re trying to close it. You’re trying to move on. So when you can bring in a mobile solution, there’s not a fat fingering of sorts. It’s a specific, this is what you want. If that like, let’s talk about picking. You’re going through a warehouse and you’re picking an item and every item number is one digit off and every serial number is one, you know, one letter off and every lot is one day different. It’s very easy to go “good enough”.
Now you have a mobile solution that says, pause, warning, we need this one. So we’re seeing these orders going out more accurately. We’re seeing inventory control being more accurately tracked. And ultimately that leads to a better bottom line, a healthier warehouse, a healthier, you know, whatever the unit might be, there’s a healthier accuracy there.
Another thing I see is efficiency. When you can say at the point of transaction, we’re doing that right now. We’re saving time, whether that looks like not needing to hire another full-time employee, whether it looks like having a leaner warehouse, we want to say, okay, how do we close the loop, make this as quick as possible to make sure that you can go back to doing the other aspects of your job that are so important? So, I’d say accuracy and efficiency are the one and two that I see most routinely.
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, and I think of user expectations. We’ve all come to, want my information here and now. And this is real time, and this is mobile. And I think that’s something that between RF-SMART and Oracle, that marriage and that partnership, it makes that happen, right? Yeah.
Travis Cotton
Right.
Travis Cotton
Absolutely. Absolutely.
RF-SMART and Oracle Can Help Hearing Impaired and Sight Impaired Workers
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah, so you and I are embarking on working on another project. We’re in discussions, with a manufacturing facility down in Alabama. And what’s unique about this manufacturing facility is that they have people that are hearing impaired and sight impaired, right? So I think that’s a unique opportunity for RF-SMART and for Oracle to team together, kind of share with the audience where you see some pockets of opportunity there with that organization.
Travis Cotton
Yeah, great question. You know, when you think of all the industries that Oracle can go into, there’s a large sector that is ADA compliance or that has pieces that are unique, particular. And where I get excited is when FourthSquare, RF-SMART, and Oracle can team together and say, where are the needs? How can we meet those and make this process not overly complex, but streamlined to make sure it fits your needs? So whether that be, you know, if there’s a visual impairment.
How do we allow a handheld to be used by someone with a specific condition? Or if there’s ways that we can make sounds and the beeping, the idea of what senses do we have? How do we utilize those? And how do we say, yes, we can partner with you? How can we support you? And then we’ve got a great team of developers as well as hardware services professionals that say, yep, we’ll take that, we’ll come on site.
Let’s discover this together. Let’s test it out. And that’s something that, Kerry, you and I have both done so much over the years, as well as with even our previous customer together in the public sector, is we got to get on site. I want to hear the questions. We want to listen first and say, hey, what is the need here? What is the gap and how can we meet that? Not just running in with a solution and saying, you’re like everyone else. Let’s just, we know what to do. Now we want to pause and say,
Would you show us how you’re doing this today? And then how can we make that transition the easiest possible? How do we have the lowest barrier to moving to the cloud, to improving your supply chain, to going mobile? We really want to meet them where they’re at, not try to take them where they don’t want to go.
Hardware and Software Solutions from RF-SMART
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah. So you mentioned hardware and software. But RF-SMART provides both, right? Now, my understanding is that you do have some specific scanners that you can use. But from my understanding as well is you can use just like commercially off the shelf, like iPhones and Androids and tablets to do your scanning. you really don’t need any special contraption that’s proprietary to RF-SMART. Now, if I need to service it, there’s only one place to go. It’s RF-SMART.
Travis Cotton
Yeah, so our smart has reseller agreements with major providers like Zebra and Honeywell. And then what we get to do is take those relationships and give our customers discount of pricing as well as white glove service of those handheld devices. We also do printers. Another thing that’s talked about lately quite a bit is RFID scanning and what that looks like to set up a warehouse for that. So if there’s anything that is hardware related from printing to mobile devices to tablets, we want to say, hey, we don’t want to add one more IT thing to your schedule. We can actually manage that. So if it is a printer issue, if it is a device issue, if it’s a tablet issue, RF-SMART has a white glove service of saying one phone call, one handshake, one contact for all those things to ultimately try to add more simplicity to the IT teams of our clients.
For us about 80 to 90 percent of our clients do use hardware that we recommend through the implementation or during the sales cycle and it just really streamlines to not add a Another lag down the line to figure out how we’re do hardware how we’re going to do printing but when we can say hey here’s our recommendation from our 40 years of experience and so we get to excitedly say that’s not a headache. That’s not an issue.
We’re glad to help so that hardware can be something that, especially with tablets or handhelds. Sometimes you can take that to an IT team and that’s a lower priority or I’m not sure that, you know, I do the computers or, you know, it really can be a tossed around subject. So we want to say there’s one call, one handshake, and let’s get you back to doing whatever functionality or transaction you’re doing in the warehouse and not worried about your hardware going down on you.
The Expertise Behind RF Smart
Kerry Boudreaux
Awesome. So one last thing that really struck me when I first met RF-SMART. You explained that the founders of RF-SMART, the people that are making RF-SMART go from good to great, they are former Oracle software engineers and software developers. Kind of share with the audience why that matters.
I know why it matters, but I think you can explain it better than I can.
Travis Cotton
Yeah, and great point. know, RF-SMART is a privately held company. We’ve been around for over 40 years and the people that we bring in, like you said, are from these major cloud or major on-premise or whatever the industry might or the product might be. They’re experts that are from those fields coming into RF-SMART. So for mobility, absolutely an asset.
But then when it comes to projects themselves as well, they can be a resource right alongside the SI team to allow another voice in that space without being overbearing or without having a need to say, hey, we have to be right. But we can say, hey, we’ve been around this block. How can we do this together? I’ve seen it this way. And truly, when I think of what software ought to be, it ought to have that relational side, this discovering together side.
And when you have people from those various backgrounds coming together, that’s the butter on the toast right there. That’s where it gets exciting to say, there’s a good expertise here. There’s a good synergy here. And a lot of, for me, my background is as a consultant for five years. And I say, most times when I was on site, I’d go, I never thought of it that way.
We can have everyone from our sales team to our services, to our hardware support to partner engagement on the same page and listening to each other. We get the best product and experience for our customers and our partners that we get to work with. So yeah, those years of experience before coming into RF-SMART have value beyond words. And we have some of our consultants that have been consultants for longer than I’ve been alive. So at RF-SMART and in various industries, and that’s a humbling and fun experience. Incredible people with various backgrounds and expertise.
Conclusion
Kerry Boudreaux
Well, Travis, it’s been a real treat having you on the podcast. I want to thank you for your time and your knowledge. I know, you live in Kansas City, right? All right. So we want to give a shout out to our Chiefs and our fellow Chiefs fans.
Travis Cotton
Yes we do. What an honor it is to cheer on the Chiefs. For 50 years we were nobodies. Now people are against us, but we’re excited for this weekend and go Chiefs and yeah, real exciting time to be around here.
Kerry Boudreaux
Yeah. So when this podcast actually airs, the Super Bowl may be over. So going forward, are you going to give us a prediction on number one? Who’s going to make it to the Super Bowl and who’s going to win? Who do you think you’re going to be playing in the Super Bowl?
Travis Cotton
Wow, okay. Wow, that’s a great one. So we saw what Washington did to Detroit. That was pretty outstanding. And Daniel’s is, I think the real deal, I could see a world where it’s Chiefs, Commanders, and Chiefs take it.
Kerry Boudreaux
All right, fantastic. Audience, for those of you that have tuned in, thank you so much for tuning in. Again, my name is Kerry Boudreau. And from all of us here at the FourthSquare Solutions Podcast, until next time, always ask yourself, how can you be transforming your business through technology and innovation?
To Contact Travis Cotton:
Phone: (405) 564-3857
Email: Travis.Cotton@RFSmart.com
Website: https://www.rfsmart.com/
If you’d like to learn more about FourthSquare and the services we offer, click here to contact us. You can also call us at (972) 919-6135. We’ll be happy to speak with you.