Absolute Secure Access Speeds and Streamlines Food Inspections

Agriculture is a cornerstone of the Dutch economy. More than half of the Netherlands’ surface area is devoted to agriculture, and the country is a large and diverse importer and exporter of agricultural goods. Quality inspections of fresh fruits and vegetables, cut flowers, and potted plants are the job of the KCB. The KCB relies heavily on technology, for which it is recognized as a model organization within the EU. The KCB’s 120 field workers use mobile devices to carry out their jobs, which involve checking products for quality and health concerns according to established EU regulations. Working out of four regional offices in the Netherlands, they perform around 200,000 inspections every year.

After completing the checks at the border, the inspectors send the approvals via a tablet that is connected to the Internet. If the final step cannot be performed, the whole import or export fails the inspection, and the process comes to a halt. Therefore, a stable Internet connection is vital. When the connection went down, contact was lost with the servers. Workers sometimes had to log in to the system again several times a day to perform the inspection in the right way. The IT help desk also then regularly faced complaints by phone from field workers.

Seamlessly Connect Mobile Devices

Absolute Secure Access offered a simple solution to the problems encountered by the KCB. The solution provides a seamless connection over the wireless network between mobile devices and application servers. It also gives priority to the key application the inspectors rely on to receive inspection requests and complete their jobs.

Resume Applications Without Manual Interference

Absolute Secure Access operates like a virtual layer across all the connection options available to the mobile device, guiding the connections in the best direction without requiring management or intervention by the user. It connects the mobile device to the Internet via Wi-Fi and 3G/4G/5G networks, and if there is no connection available, it simply pauses applications until a connection is available again. At that point, the application session resumes, continuing from where it left off. This happens automatically, without the knowledge of the user or requiring additional steps.

Improve Productivity for Field and IT Workers

Using Absolute technology means that workers at the KCB now only have to log in once at the start of the working day. The situation where workers contact the IT help desk several times a day to report a poor Internet connection is now a thing of the past. Since implementation, there has been virtually no contact any more from them about connection problems. As a result, implementing Absolute Secure Access not only had an impact on field workers, but the IT department can also focus again on its normal activities because of the decrease in the volume of complaints.