Product: DIAD (Delivery Information Acquisition Device) Developer: Menachem Diamantstein Company: Motorola Israel Start of Development: 1991
In 1991, Menachem Diamantstein, Director of Motorola Israel’s Engineering Department at the time, was in Vancouver, Canada.
A member of the Canadian team told him about a challenge they were facing –dispatch and delivery giant UPS had asked Motorola International to develop a base to be used in their vehicles for charging the cumbersome device it had been using. Something had gone wrong in the development process, which by that stage had already taken a year. The Canadians were in a bind.
Diamantstein gave heed. He and his team spent the entire weekend reading the data, and they uncovered a series of fundamental flaws in the existing design. The Israeli team met with UPS personnel to present these problems, and was consequently able to gain their trust. The two hours assigned for the meeting quickly evolved into two days. All players understood that the Israeli team had caught onto something that would ultimately revolutionize the mail and delivery industry worldwide.
The DIAD it developed is an end device that allows businesses to connect to the company’s collective database in order to instantly check inventory, track products, scan barcodes, locate merchandise in the warehouse, etc. The primary innovation was that the DIADs would follow the process from the moment a package is picked up until the moment it reaches its destination, updating information every step of the way so that both the sender and the recipient can be continually kept up to speed on its whereabouts. This technology ultimately provided the means for new services, such as the option to change the destination during the delivery process.
The new DIAD excelled not only in its features, but also in its quality. The rate of technical difficulties diminished almost entirely, elevating UPS into becoming the most reliable, efficient delivery service. Their success created a demand for DIADs by other dispatch and delivery companies across the globe: FedEx, DHL, and over 70 percent of mail and delivery companies worldwide. The largest of these deals was signed between Motorola Israel and USPS, and was valued at half a billion dollars.
Motorola Israel has become the largest company in the world in the field of DIADs, and was granted the Motorola Quality Award by the CEO of Motorola Global.
