We are looking to try to become semi-paperless (the COO says “100% paperless”, but c’mon now, we need to be realistic).
Anyways, I have been tasked with finding a suitable tablet computer that can be used in this venture. I was initially told to ‘get an iPad and test out the processes’, and I was in a state of disbelief that iPads were the route they wanted to take. Then it became obvious that ‘iPad’ was just being used as a generic term for a tablet.
We will be migrating to Kinetic soon, so we can utilize the WebUI on an iPad or a Galaxy tab of some sort, but what kind of restrictions does that come with, if any?
I am aware that for the full client to be used that either an RDP session, or a Windows tablet will need to be used, which is fine. I can get Surface tablets or similar for those users.
But the users that are on the shop floor clocking in/out of MES and looking at PDFs of travelers for the job they are on, what is the best or most appropriate route to take? What have y’all had the most success with?
I have been looking at a few of the devices here, but am afraid to click on the ‘request quote’ button as I know they are not going to be cheap.
A lot of our employees use Surfaces which they can dock at their desk for multiple monitors and become mobile quickly if needs be. For the most part, we haven’t had any significant issues with the Surfaces as far as Epicor goes. Device and dock issues have been a different story, but the newer models seem to be better than earlier ones.
We’ve got basic Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 3 units at our workcenters.
Paired each with a Unitech Bluetooth scanner. Mounted each with a StarTech Universal Tablet Desk Stand. They’re far enough away from the workcenters that they’re “safe” (or as safe as any mobile device can be) from potential damage.
We went through a similar process during our implementation recently as well. We’ve tried a couple different devices, and here’s my thoughts and experience with each kind as we’ve tested them.
iPads
Pros
The OS is pretty speedy and they’re one of the quicker tablets out there. With response time in mind, they work great.
A bigger screen and generally an easier interface to use that most people are comfortable with since it’s so similar to IOS. Lots of case options as well.
We had a couple on-site already, so we didn’t have to invest anything to test these outside of 1-2 we ordered for other parts of the building.
Cons (couple big ones here)
They’re pretty expensive even for older gen models. Getting a bulk order of these was going to be pretty pricy and outside of what we were looking to budget.
We had quite a few issues accessing MES/Kinetic on these. Whether we tried Chrome or the built-in Safari, we had a lot of trouble staying consistently connected to the Kinetic browser, and were advised by our consultant to NOT go to the iPad route just because of issues they are still having on IOS.
Our OPS consultants advised that iPads would likely give us more issues than benefits, and they advised the Zebra/Samsung route.
Samsung Tablets
Pros
These were fairly inexpensive and very easy to buy in bulk. We got 8-10 that are like a gen or two older than the current, and didn’t spend much at all compared to what the iPads would have cost us.
Works very well with the Kinetic browser and didn’t give us any issues in connection, access, or displaying Kinetic in a mobile/desktop view.
Easy to use and fairly simple to set up.
Lots of case options as well as custom cases that we’ve used to turn our tablets into a POS on our shop floor. We mounted the case/tablet combo into a little custom enclosure we fabricated here, so now they are at a fixed position across the building that users can walk over to in their areas.
We were able to order some cheap handheld BT scanners to pair with these and they’ve worked great thus far.
Cons
Can be a little bit slow at times since they are older gen, and have some finickly wifi connection from time to time.
The OS is not as intuitive for most users, so the learning curve is slightly higher.
The older gen tablets can only update so far, so down the road they will likely need to be upgraded. (Still more cost effective in the long term though over the iPads.)
I’d say our experience so far with using the Samsung tablets for the past 4-5 months has been a 7/10. Generally we don’t have too many issues and our users have taken to them pretty well after some time spent using them. We’ve found some good vendors that make replacing tablets/cases easy and cost effective etc.
If you need any more info, just holler! Best of luck man.
We have tried Microsoft, iPad’s and Andriod devices. The best options are Microsoft or iPad. The problem with Andriod is the long term support. The Andriod tablets are a dime a dozen and just do not have the upgrade and life of the other two. Microsoft is great because it is basically a portable desktop in tablet form. However, that adds to the complexity of the device for setup, etc. iPads are nice because they are simple and easy to setup. The draw back is they do not do everything a Microsoft computer does. With that being said, isn’t Kinetic supposed to run the full client in a browser not matter what operatiing system? Your Epicor version may determine your answer.
We are at the tail end of our “paperless” transformation for our main site as 10.2.x users, and ended up going with iPads. We have built out several pretty fully featured internal web tools for our production users to replicate anything they would be doing in Epicor/MES, so we aren’t giving them any kind of direct Epicor access (some areas that use computers instead of tablets are going to get epicor pulled away from their computer pretty soon). They do all of their logging into jobs, recording labor, issuing/transferring parts, and anything else from custom built web pages that do direct SQL reads, and use the rest API for updates. iPads we found had a nice screen size and battery life, and our Ops team seemed to think that they were pretty easy to setup and roll out. They have thick rubber cases on them that look like they are made for 4 year olds, but have worked pretty well so far.
Looking at the analytics currently we have between 85 and 90% of jobs fully flowing through our new paperless system.
We’ve been ‘paperless’ on the shop floor since 2018. Our shop floor employees all have Microsoft Surface Tablets ( a few generations old) with minimum specs. We purchase cases and mounts from the Joy Factory. I know that sounds like something you shouldn’t be looking at at work, and I got many questions when the first box of them arrived on the loading dock! But it’s a real company!
Between the rugged cases and the flexible mag mounts, we have not had any damaged tablets, and it allows our production employees to move around the shop floor as needed.
Yup…like I said, “potential”…and can’t be safely meme’d either.
EDIT: or maybe we can!
Anyway, this NSFW is SFW and they do have some nice-looking equipment available. Word of warning - if you look for some of the rugged tablets/cases, expect to spend big dollars. We looked in years past at doing stuff with our forklifts…mucho dinero and no bueno.
For those of you that have deployed Surface tablets, are they deployed as ‘portable’ and the team carries them around the shop floor, or are they more stationary where they are mounted on or near the machines on the floor?
If they are being carried around, how are you handling things like charging the battery? Do you have a centralized charging station and they just go and swap the machine out for a different one when needed?
Ours are in a case with a handhold on the back and we built a inhouse mount connected to the work tables so they can use it as a monitor when docking. Most work tables have an extra 23" monitor, keyboard and mouse as well.
How’d you pull it off for mounting and power? We’re using EKMW on handhelds (Honeywell/Intermec CK65). Works OK but still needs a little tweak to make the pick process more efficient.
They were setup before I started here nearly 3 years ago. They’ve held up thus far as we’ve not had any fail or fall out. Though these forklifts are only driving on a cement floor so it’s not there are pot holes and bumps.
I don’t recommend using them, but as a cheap test it worked well enough.
