Field Service Computers: Consider the Variables-and the Benefits

 

 

Communications platforms, ruggedness, software, and other factors all play a part in your purchase choice.

When a utility considers equipping its field service work force with computers, the decision-making process often starts with software-not with questions about the ruggedness of the utility's field device, or whether the company should go with a Panasonic or an Itronix laptop.

"[The software that drives the decision commonly is] a dispatch-oriented software, either that has been custom built by someone in the utility or that they purchased," says Jeff Thomas, marketing communications manager at Itronix, in Spokane, Wash. "Then they say, 'Jeez, I want to take this application and use it in a mobile work force environment so that what I see is the same thing that my mobile worker sees when out doing his service calls."

From there the ball starts rolling. The utility might contact a software supplier to explain what it wants to accomplish out in the field; the supplier then could either send the utility something out of the box or a custom- written program.

Only at that point are considerations raised about the actual device that will be placed in the hands of the technicians: What platform should it run on-a notebook? A handheld? Finally, once a utility starts considering the devices, there are questions of how rugged the devices need to be, what communications platforms will best suit its needs, and, of course, the omnipresent technology-purchasing considerations of obsolescence.