A couple weeks ago during the plenary session at the Petroleum User Group Conference (PUG) in Houston, the ESRI Energy Team presented an ArcLogistics solution that included mobile and AVL (automatic vehicle location) viewer components.
At the invitation of ESRI, Latitude created the AVL viewer component using ESRI’s new Silverlight API. Although our team is slammed right now, helping build the demo tied in nicely with the work we’re doing with Geocortex Essentials 2.0. I was in the audience, and I thought the ESRI team did a great job in presenting a complete workflow from start to end (we also appreciated them acknowledging our contribution on stage).
The purpose of the demonstration was to illustrate the power of ArcLogistics to optimize the processing of oil field production maintenance orders. The scenario is built using maintenance orders with the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center field data in Wyoming. Maintenance orders are taken from SAP, loaded to ArcLogistics and optimized between a small fleet of contractor vehicles. Diagnostics indicate the expected savings in time and mileage. The routes for each truck are dispatched by wireless to a simulated in-car station that informs the driver of his schedule for the day and provides an advised route generated by ArcLogistics. Through a lightweight mobile app, the contractor indicates that he has completed a job, posts it back to the dispatch desk, and then continues to his next job. Using a Geocortex tracking viewer (via ESRI’s Silverlight API), we then simulated the dispatch center’s view; real-time tracking of multiple fleet vehicles on an interactive map.
I expect that ESRI’s ArcLogistics tied in with a mobile solution has a bright future (and not just in the petroleum industry).
In New York City, a significant number of taxi drivers have gone on a 48-hour strike to protest (in part) mandated GPS in their cabs (the 
