Plant Services - November 2007 - (Page 39)

ManageMent Personnel California dream come true Figure 1. Tablet PCs have been saving time on PMs for three years at San Francisco Water’s West Bay Facilities. Along with transmitting maintenance and calibration information, the mobiles are operator interfaces for the control system. ner adds. “Better understanding has led to acceptance. The wireless infrastructure wasn’t there, but now it is, at least in the process industries. In some cases it needs to be extended, but it’s there.” gree of pipe buildup or corrosion, or an unambiguous representation of a switch position or a needle on a dial.” You can add voice recognition capabilities for “heads up and hands-free” operation using text-to-speech and speech-to-text conversions. “It makes data entry better, safer and more productive,” Padula says. “Voice recognition isn’t yet perfect on mobile or even on desktops, but simple, one-word or short phrases do work. It will get better as computing power and memory increase, but it’s usable now and adds value.” Digital cameras can be connected or built in to let users capture and store images of equipment, damage, asfound/as-left, etc. Signature-capturing devices and mobile printers provide accountability and paper trails, or produce bar-coded identification labels for inventory or asset tagging. And sensors such as voltmeters or accelerometers offer direct input of condition-monitoring or troubleshooting parameters, reducing data-entry errors and the number of devices a technician must carry. When peripherals converge Capabilities emerging in commercial applications for wireless phones and laptops are quickly and cost-effectively being adapted for industrial mobiles. Part of the challenge is making the best use of limited display space on an industrial handheld (Figure 3). “The small screens are like looking at your application through a keyhole,” says Marty Osborn, senior director of industry product management, Infor EAM. “They’re becoming more configurable so you’re able to display what you need.” Those compact displays are being used to communicate using images and schematics rather than just text. “A visual representation is worth 1,000 words,” says Bill Padula, vice president, solutions architecture at Syclo (www.syclo.com). Visual representation leads to positive identification and common terminology, “a widget versus a thingamajig,” Padula says, “or where you need a visual reference to be consistent, such as deNovember 2007 GERMAN ENGINEERING DISCOVER W W W.DISCOVERCURTIS.COM ©2007 Curtis-Toledo, Inc. 19282a CTGNL GENRL German.indd www.PLANTSERVICES.com 1 9/19/07 39 7:19:36 http://www.syclo.com http://www.discovercurtis.com http://www.discovercurtis.com http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - November 2007

Plant Services - November 2007 Contents New Tools Letters Let Us Know Where to Put the Gas Up and Running How are you Fighting Crisis? What Works Why is the Best Practice Transfer so Hard? Who are you Going to Call? Chained to Power Mobile Mindset Making Money in the Lube Lab Grabbing a Moving Target Bagging the BTUs Keeping Mellow Preserving Health and Safety The Power of Reliability Excellence

Plant Services - November 2007

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