Automated Business Processes on Handheld PDAs

A long time friend of mine, Bryan Larkin, was fond of saying that electronic data collection forms on handheld PDAs are much more powerful than simply digital versions of paper forms. When an end user creates a PDA data collection form using our Intercue Mobility Suite, they can control the quality of the data and the business process that the form represents. Let me provide some examples:

• Form 1 has a question with 3 possible answers (a,b,c). If you answer the question with "a", the electronic form on the PDA jumps you to another page to answer additional questions related to answer "a". The form is now customized to ask only questions related to your previous answers.
• If a question asked for a unit of measurement in meters, and you answer with a "yes", it can pop-up a message saying - "Invalid answer please use numeric answers"
• If you select a data collection form called "Phase 1 Site Assessment" the form can be configured to walk the user through each data collection process in the order desired. For example - first enter data from a "Nuclear Density Compaction Test", second collect soil samples, package and document them in a zip lock bag with a printed client label, third collect a water sample, place in a bottle with the client's label attached.......

The opportunities to creatively build work flows and business processes into electronic data collection forms on handheld PDAs are powerful and endless. The immediate values are improved quality assurance, process standardization, better data, controlled processes and normalized procedures.

Heavy Construction & Handheld PDAs

We have recently provided a mobile software solution to a large highway/roadway construction company in Ireland to address their need to document safety inspections on scaffolds and cranes. Ireland has safety regulations that require each work shift to inspect the scaffolds and cranes before using them. The purpose of these regulations are to avoid accidents like this recent one on Boston.

For those not geographically challenged - yes I took this photo in Spain, not Ireland, but it looks good and matches this topic so no complaints.

This customer has the requirement to document and store all safety inspections in case they are audited or there is an accident. Since many of their construction projects have 2 work shifts per day, this can mean up to 10 safety inspections per job site per week.

In order to keep all of these inspection forms organized and stored, they required the use of handheld computers on each job site that would synchronize the data from each safety inspection with a centrally managed database at their headquarters. The handheld PDAs were low cost iPAQ Pocket PCs from HP connected to a SQL database. The PDA version of the safety inspection forms were created using MobileDataforce's Intercue Mobility Suite.

Underground Cable Layers, Utilities & Handheld PDAs

A few months back we created a mobile work order management system for an "underground cable laying" business. I did not even realize this was an "industry" category, but soon learned it even has its own annual conference in Las Vegas.

Our customer works on behalf of utilities and phone companies to lay cable primarily along roadways. Our solution was delivered using Pocket PC handhelds, MobileDataforce's Intercue Mobility Suite software, and uploading to an MS-Access database application.

Recently this same customer has been pondering an upgrade to our PointSync solution which would allow for bi-directional database synchronization and a full RDBMS on his handhelds.

Bluetooth Adopts New Radio Technology: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Here is an interesting article that describes how Bluetooth is evolving:

Bluetooth Adopts New Radio Technology: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Currently, Bluetooth works only for low-speed uses like headsets and wireless keyboards. UWB, which has yet to appear in consumer devices, enables wireless transmissions at speeds equivalent to USB or FireWire cables at distances up to 10 feet.

Paper Data Collection vs. PDA Data Collection

A friend of mine works at a company that supplies temporary and contract labor. They recently supplied an electrical utility with a dozen workers to act as data collectors. They were given the task of counting the number of lines coming off of each electrical transformer. They were suppose to walk to the transformer, count the lines connected to it, and identify where each of the lines terminated.

Despite my valiant sales effort to convince them to use our PDA based data collection solutions, they decided to accomplish this task using paper forms on clipboards (my arch rival). The other day I met up with my friend and he shared that the project had been a disaster. Why? Large amounts of the required data collection fields were left blank, or were unreadable. Random testing of the data uncovered a great deal of inaccuracies. To add to these issues, the mistakes and problems were not discovered until the project was completed and the workers dismissed. Bad data in - bad data out.

How could MobileDataforce had made this project a success? Our data collection solutions for handheld PDAs can do the following:

1. Validate the data at the point of work
2. Ensure required fields are completed
3. Synchronize the data to a database for real time review and quality assurance
4. Tie the data collection process to individuals for quality assurance (pay only for quality)
5. GPS coordinates can be automatically captured and tied to the data collection

To send a group of temporary and unproven data collection people into the field with paper forms is expensive, time consuming and often a total failure. By automating the data collection process, and engaging in real-time quality assurance, you can ensure you are getting accurate data and the results you require.