Cara Donna Solves Cold Storage Issues

As a smaller, family operated food distribution business often bidding against much larger competitors, Cara Donna achieves its competitive edge by being nimble, flexible, and responsive. They provide big company performance with a more personalized brand of family service. Sounds nice, but in a business where the margin for error is already notoriously narrow, it's slim-to-none for companies like Cara Donna. That's why Joe Wessling, IT Administrator for Cara Donna, was understandably grave when describing his need to replace their previous provider's temperamental mobile computers. "I was having to send products back on a regular basis," Wessling lamented. "It was change or die."

Broad line food distributors like Cara Donna operate in environments that wreak havoc on delicate technical equipment. Each day, their warehouse workers navigate storage temperatures that range from 85ºF with humidity to -10ºF and arid. Moving from warm-and-wet to cold-and-dry storage environments can create a host of problems for scanners and mobile computers: materials become brittle and break, ice and condensation form, batteries fail, and connectors expand and contract.

When productivity started to suffer due to inferior equipment that couldn't handle these challenging conditions, Wessling knew it was time to seek out a more rugged alternative. "We can't run the warehouse without this equipment and it puts a big damper on business when it doesn't work," he explained. "We don't have a paper system to fall back on, so performance of our digital equipment is paramount." After considering several alternate providers, Mr. Wessling decided on LXE; a decision, he admits, that was based largely on reputation, and cemented by a better value. Since the final determination, Wessling is pleased to report that product performance has been exceptional. "I haven't had to send anything out for repairs," he said. "I've had 100% up-time. No downtime at all. That's huge."