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XTRA Lease, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, offers trailers for rent and lease to
for-hire and private motor carriers as well as logistics providers through more than
85 U.S., Canadian and Mexican branch locations. The company fields nearly 125,000
over-the-road and storage trailers for daily rentals, term leases, leases with
purchase options, and sales of pre-owned equipment. Equipment includes vans,
reefers, flatbeds, storage trailers and specialty trailer models.
XTRA Lease’s primary objective was to focus on new customer requirements at each
of its company locations, according to Steve Zaborowski, Senior Vice President at
XTRA Lease. The company sought technology that would enable it to get closer
to its customers and meet its supply chain needs more effectively by supporting realtime
electronic inventory information. Goals of the project also included reducing
transaction costs and gaining the ability to support more customers.
“We developed a system that would drive process improvements throughout our
branch operations,” Zaborowski said. “XTRA Xpress service, a mobility solution, was
designed to deliver significant improvements to operational efficiency and improved
service to our customers. We needed to save time internally by completing the core
tasks performed thousands of times at our branches each day more efficiently. And
we needed to deliver new services to our customers, making it faster and easier for
them to do business with XTRA Lease.”
To enable these improvements, XTRA Lease developed an application for handheld
computers, allowing the company to complete all customer transactions and trailer
inventories electronically. The next challenge was installing and implementing it,“and it had to be done in a cost effective manner,” Zaborowski added. The
application required wireless network installations in each of the U.S. and Canadian
branches so the handheld computers could communicate with XTRA Lease’s legacy
system.
To meet its mobility rollout project management and technology deployment needs,
XTRA Lease turned to industry leader Velociti, Inc.
For the XTRA Xpress rollout, Velociti helped XTRA Lease develop specifications for
wireless hardware and was responsible for setting up the wireless 802.11b
infrastructure needed for mobility computing in all U.S. and Canadian XTRA Lease
branches. Over an eight-month rollout schedule, Velociti ensured that the wireless
network antenna systems were installed in the proper location at each branch,
including custom configured installations for every facility.
“Velociti’s work affected 80 branches and helped set us up for the successful rollout
of the service in each location,” Zaborowski said. “Velociti showed great flexibility in
meeting the requirements of the installation. During the course of the project as
well, Velociti discovered other technical improvements we could make. For example,
two locations weren't grounded, so they provided the appropriate recommendations.“Velociti delivered the installations on schedule and they effectively readied the
branches for 802.11b communications so that our XTRA Xpress service could be
introduced on time,” Zaborowski added. “Each branch met its scheduled rollout
date, thanks, in large part, to a quality installation of the wireless network.”
For XTRA Lease, according to Zaborowski, Velociti delivered what it promised at a
very competitive cost. The company provided a quality installation of the wireless
infrastructure, enabling XTRA Lease to launch each branch rollout of the XTRA Xpress
service on time. Velociti also provided detailed reports of the completed installations,
including specifics for each branch.
“Velociti communicated extremely well about any issues needing attention,”
Zaborowski noted, “plus they offered great access should there be any problem. A lot
of companies can produce a network, but in this case we were looking at a project
that extended over a longer timeline, involving dozens of branches with installations
based in highly industrial areas. We had to make sure we had the appropriate
expertise to handle the job. We had that with Velociti.”
About Velociti Inc.
Kansas City-based Velociti Inc. was founded in 1989 as a division of Central States
Thermo King. The company was created to provide mobile installation and service
technicians that perform all aspects of technology deployments for the transportation,
retail and warehousing market sectors. Velociti clients include many Fortune 500
companies from wide variety of market segments, including transportation, technology,
retail, food service, distribution and manufacturing. Velociti has achieved double-digit
sales growth every year since 1995 and now offers service in the U.S., Canada, Mexico,
Puerto Rico and Western Europe. For more information visit www.velociti.us or call
913-233-7227.
Media Contact:
Susan Fall
LaunchIt Public Relations
858-490-1050
susan@launchitpr.com
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