Oklahoma-based Mingo Manufacturing engineers specialty parts for oil and gas drilling. The pieces they manufacture are tough — and so is their working environment. But modern business demands require them to move fast, and the company has long sought a durable smartphone that doesn’t require them to compromise on productivity in favor of durability.
Systems administrator Brian Bode acts as an IT department of one for the company, dealing with all the technology that keeps Mingo Manufacturing running. Bode says they’ve had problems in the past with other smartphones being “obliterated” after short drops, and he regularly sees the toll that dirt, moisture and high temperatures take on technology. “It can get wet and humid. It’s nice and steamy here in Oklahoma, and even a little moisture can ruin most devices,” Bode says. “It’s quite a brutal environment, so having something that’s durable and able to last is important.”
To see if the Samsung Galaxy S7 active might increase mobile productivity and stand up to the rigors of their industrial environment, we challenged Mingo Manufacturing to get through their workday using the Galaxy S7 active as their primary device.
Built for Tough Environments
The team at Mingo Manufacturing found that the durable Galaxy S7 active allowed for the real-time communication that can make or break a deal. “It reduced the time of interaction between us and clients, and that increases our productivity and lowers our production time,” Bode says.
Production manager Justin Johnson is always on the go, moving between stations in the shop monitoring manufacturing, ensuring quality, providing time estimates and fielding client questions. “We don’t take it light on anything — everything is used hard,” Johnson says. “It’s 107 degrees in the shop … We have dirt, manufacturing soot, welding spray, heat and humidity — but we have to keep working.”
With its resistance to shattering, water and dust, the Galaxy S7 active proved up to the task for Johnson, enabling mobile productivity wherever he may be — in the office, on the road or on the shop floor.
Similarly, drafter and designer Rick Short regularly moves between the office to the workshop floor to see how his drawings are making the transition from the design to final product. He found the Galaxy S7 active’s best-in-class camera to be an especially useful feature, allowing him to take high-quality pictures of parts in low-light conditions — something not possible with the inferior cameras on most durable smartphones.
“I’ll go out when we’re rebuilding something and take a picture of the parts and send it to the customer,” Short says. “What [the customers] like is, after I take the picture, they can keep zooming in and zooming in — you can zoom in down to the smallest, [most] minute part.”
Being responsible for not only the devices themselves but the data they have access to, Bode was pleased to have an extra layer of protection for sensitive data with the defense-grade security of Samsung Knox.
“From a corporate security perspective … you’ve got proprietary info going back and forth between employees and clients,” Bode says. “The Knox capability serves as a container to lock away work stuff. With email and work applications in Knox, if your kids pick it up or someone takes it … you have that extra layer of security on top of the PIN or fingerprint scanner to protect your sensitive information.”
The Samsung Challenge
So, did the team at Mingo Manufacturing think the Samsung Challenge was a success?
“I would absolutely say the Samsung Challenge was a success. I’ve found it incredibly useful myself, and I know Justin and Ricky have found ways to use it that make them more productive,” Bode says. “I would not only recommend [the Galaxy S7 active] to people working in harsh environments, I’d recommend it to anyone who is rough on their phone.”
See how the Samsung Galaxy S7 active brought some much-needed mobility to the team at Mingo Manufacturing in this video.
