Relay, the company that turns talk into action for frontline teams, has officially announced the launch of its groundbreaking Fleet Shield Program.
To understand the significance of such a development, we must take into account how legacy devices like traditional radios have long been infamous for being disconnected from the cloud, as well as holding back critical safety and operational improvements.
Against that; Relay’s Fleet Shield program arrives on the scene bearing an ability to eliminate the unpredictable and costly hardware replacement cycle. More on the same would reveal how the company pairs its cloud-connected devices with Fleet Shield so to provide the strong, connected foundation necessary for finally unlocking the digital transformation of frontline work.
Markedly enough, Fleet Shield is purpose-built to address frontline’s biggest challenge i.e. a prematurely worn-out battery. We say so because of its commitment to proactively monitor device health to replace units before they can cause a slowdown. This it does while simultaneously eliminating the long-term costs of wear and tear.
In fact, at the conclusion of their initial term, customers renewing their service plan can also come expecting to replace every device in their fleet with new, same-generation models for only $75 each.
To go along with it, lost or broken devices are also replaced for a simple 50% discount..
“Frontline workers are the engine of our economy, but they are operating with a digital gap. Industrial companies are racing toward AI and automation, but they’re still handing out disconnected radios that are a technological dead end,” said Chris Chuang, CEO of Relay. “This data is a wake-up call: legacy communication tools are a hidden tax on productivity and a drain on morale. We solve this by first ensuring the hardware foundation is unbreakable with Fleet Shield. This new standard of operational certainty is what unlocks the power of our software and provides a clear path to an AI-enabled future.”
The development in question delivers a rather interesting follow-up to a survey conducted by Relay which interviewed both managers and frontline workers in industrial sectors, highlighting a growing crisis where outdated communication devices are costing companies significant time, money, and workforce stability.
The stated report goes on to highlight how frequent device failures, communication dead zones, and lack of real-time visibility are slowing teams down, impacting productivity and putting worker safety at risk
Talk about this survey on a slightly deeper level, we begin from more than a third of frontline teams (36.8%) reporting communication devices fail every single day, slowing response times, disrupting operations, and putting safety at risk.
Next up, nearly half of workers deemed battery problems (48.4%) and physical damage from drops or breakage (46.8%) as the most common causes of device failure.
Another detail worth a mention is rooted in the fact that 48.2% have had to delay or cancel operational improvement projects, such as new safety initiatives or workflow trials, due to their communication technology being too unreliable or outdated to support them.
A contingent of 45.2% said outdated technology contributes to turnover among frontline workers. In that respect, Fleet Shield would introduce Fleet Shield Upgrade Guarantee, which allows upgrade their entire fleet to the newest models at 50% off MSRP, ensuring teams always have access to modern tools.
Apart from that, well over 70% (71.8%) reported a service that proactively maintains and replaces devices would lower workplace stress, with over a third (36.8%) saying it would significantly reduce stress.
“For too long, the industry has accepted a broken model: buy an expensive, single-purpose device, watch it fail, and then pay again while you wait weeks for it to come back from a repair depot. That cycle of operational disruption and budget surprises ends now,” said Jim Mulcahy, President of Relay. “You cannot build the intelligent, data-driven frontline of the future on a foundation of unreliable hardware. Fleet Shield provides a dependable hardware backbone, elevated by our always-on, cloud-based platform. Fleet Shield isn’t just a business model innovation; it’s an operational one, powered by a sophisticated logistics network.”
