Touch and Go!!!!
The Base Station
The base station is the centerpiece to the support of service engineers and technicians that are in
the field. It provides them with up-to-date information, such as network status, from the
dispatcher’s office and is included in work orders and assignments. A tight integration with ERP,
Service Management and Customer information Systems ensures the accuracy of the data.
Detailed information is available on daily schedules, part availability, set appointments, route
planning for time estimation purposes and complex queries. Thus technicians can be assigned
specific tasks based on the service area, task, where they are located compared to the requested
location and which spare components are available in which vehicle based on baseplan
backgrounds for dispatching software, representation of the status and location of all the field
engineers.
The Mobile Station
Once the Technicians connect and turn on the laptop or pen based computer, all information is
automatically exchanged, ready for the next day’s activities. One type of data included is used for
route planning to direct him to the location. Information on these computers includes graphic and
alphanumeric data. It is stored in a RDBMS along with connectivity information. All information
required for data display such as line styles, symbol, color, etc. are also stored in the RDBMS and
created consistent with the master GIS implementation. With fast screen displays for very large
data volumes, a very efficient usage of internal memory and a user definable layering structure
that can be scale dependent for display purposes, Technicians can quickly obtain the appropriate
data needed to execute his task.
The Geocomponent
The software on both base and mobile stations is based on COM (OCX, ActiveX control).
Facilities for the creation of user friendly applications in a Rapid Application Development (RAD)
environment supporting ActiveX (Visual Basic, Access, Designer 2000, etc.) with full Windows
related functionality (OLE, ODBC, SQL, DDE, COM, DCOM, DAO, etc. ) is inherently available.
Windows standards for any type of peripheral equipment such as plotters, printers, scanners and
displays, touch screens and pen computer hardware technology, monitors, printers, WMF, GIF,
clipboards and Internet streams are all supported. Thus the operator and field technician can be
supplied with an environment that suit their requirements.
In short: An ActiveX control is not an independent application but rather an environment where
software developers can create, in their organizational standard using their favorite programming
tool, independent applications for use throughout their organization. This facilitates an integration
of GIS related functionality with for example office automation and workflow management
technology. It can even be used to create applications that combine with Oracle Objects for OLE
(Oracle Designer 2000’s replacement) to create GIS applications that heavily depend on database
integrity.
Using component-based software can also improve business processes and workflow
administration resulting in dramatic cost reductions. Furthermore, any existing applications can be
expanded to include GIS functionality.
In the end component based software development will inherently make application development
cheaper, of higher quality and faster resulting in lower costs.
|
