Toughbooks speed Honda vehicle servicing

Stephen Withers
Monday, 17 October 2011 16:04

IT Industry - Deals

Panasonic's Toughbook notebooks are speeding up service at Honda dealerships.

Panasonic has another big-name reference customer for its Toughbook line of rugged notebooks. Following the announcement that Telstra had decided to stay with the Toughbook family when the time came to refresh its fleet of notebooks used by field technicians, we now learn that the Toughbook CF-19 MKIII is in use at franchised Honda vehicle dealerships.

According to Panasonic officials, 120 Toughbooks have been rolled out to dealers and Honda's technical training department, where they are used in conjunction with Honda's diagnostic system. Vehicle software upgrades are being carried out in two minutes (rather than the 15 minutes needed with the previous system) and diagnostics and troubleshooting time has been halved.

Ruggedness was a top priority: "After considering feedback from other Honda subsidiaries that had introduced standard laptops and were dissatisfied, as well as measuring the Toughbook CF-19 against the QCDMS [quality, cost, delivery, management and systems] criteria, it was clear to us that the Panasonic solution met our requirements for durability, size and functionality," said Sam Taranto, technical assistant manager at Honda Australia.

"We also measured price and, although the CF-19 wasn't the cheapest option, it still scored the highest in our QCDMS test," he added.

Mark Wallis, group manager, Toughbook at Panasonic Australia said "The Toughbook CF-19 is really the ideal fit for Honda Australia, providing a purpose built, reliable and rugged solution that will stand up to the demands of a busy workshop environment," he said.