Reser’s Fine Foods, Inc. is among the United States’ largest family-owned and-operated prepared foods businesses. Reser’s products are sold throughout the US and Canada and include popular brand names such as Reser’s American Classics, Don Pancho, Stonemill Kitchens, Main Street Bistro and more.
The company has come a long way since 1950, when Mildred Reser served up her homemade potato salad in the family’s Cornelius, OR., farmhouse. Today, Reser’s employs more than 4,000 people at 14 facilities in the US and Mexico.
Kate O’Connor is responsible for ensuring that the company’s equipment and software help optimize production and distribution center workflows. This includes mobile devices that help maintain high worker productivity in these facilities and direct store delivery personnel.
“Our mobile devices are essential to reliably producing and distributing our products on time. Otherwise, we would not be able to service our customers quickly and efficiently.” O’Connor says.
Migration Support
Reser’s introduced mobile, wireless scanners into its production and distribution center operations many years ago. The devices connected to enterprise resource planning (ERP) and warehouse management databases.
Over the years, O’Connor says she depended on contracted programmers to update and test the mobile device management (MDM) software and client used with the scanners.
“I am certainly not a programmer, or a tester,” she says. “I had to count on other people to do the programming and test the devices at the facilities and then tell me what was working and what was not. It was a good relationship that worked.”
Recently, Reser’s began upgrading its fleet of mobile devices. O'Connor's contact from the mobile devices supplier suggested she call Irvine, CA, based StayLinked, a terminal emulation software leader, to help transition to the new devices while continuing to use the existing ones.
“That was my next call,” O’Connor says.
StayLinked Solution
After O’Connor talked with StayLinked’s Senior Systems Engineer John Fuller, she discovered how the company could support Reser’s Fine Foods, Inc.’s transition.
The StayLinked software would give her the ability to make improvements, making transactions as worker-friendly as possible. The platform would transform application screens into easy-to-use, graphical screens with no changes to the underlying enterprise applications.
“I needed a partner who could help me walk through programming and be available when things weren't working,” O’Connor reflects. “John quickly found out that meant a solution where everything was done right and done now.
“John has a wide range of skills and abilities,” O’Connor continues. “He and the engineering support team helped me work with StayLinked to utilize the old devices as we transitioned into the new ones,” O’Connor continues.
Once the new software was deployed at one location, O’Connor tested the platform, and found the solution “was all programmed and ready to go.”
Results and Looking Ahead
When the deployment deadline rolled around, the new devices and software were operating as planned -- supplemented by the existing hardware where needed – supported by StayLinked’s terminal emulation software and engineering services.
“The migration was seamless,” O’Connor recalls.
Today, O’Connor also has a wide range of future options to consider, including displaying images and graphical screen elements like buttons and input boxes.
“StayLinked has even more to offer than what we are currently using,” O’Connor says. “I’m looking forward to adding value as we move forward. StayLinked is giving us options for the future.”
About StayLinked
StayLinked is the proven market leader in terminal emulation for the supply chain industry and continues to drive innovation with the most advanced software solutions available for the warehouse. StayLinked enables our customers to easily migrate to state-of-the-art devices, measure and optimize productivity with cutting-edge business intelligence, and interface with ground-breaking technologies in the areas of automation, robotics, and emerging IIoT technologies. For nearly two decades, StayLinked has continued to deliver revolutionary software products with unparalleled customer satisfaction and world-class support to hundreds of partners and thousands of customers around the globe. For more information, visit www.staylinked.com.
