Speech recognition and mobile field solutions
Field Professionals Go Mobile
Mobile computing has become a major growth market in the last year, as the price-performance point of
hardware has reached a level acceptable to mainstream corporate users. Within many of these corporate
users, transferring data to and from the field is one of the largest challenges. Many telecommunications
and utilities have invested in expensive laptop based solution with wireless data connectivity to allow
near real time communications to keep the enterprise current. At a cost of $10,000 per fully equipped
field technician, many millions of dollars are spent to enhance field access to data. Improving customer
service with fewer full time equivalents (FTEs) is the goal. Hardware alternatives to the rugged laptop
and pen-based computer have arrived on the market such as WAP enabled cell phones, CE and Palm
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and, more recently, wearable computers that are lightweight, with
innovative screen options.
The smaller, lower cost PDAs are reducing the cost of ownership but with challenges for the field. The
awkwardness of trying to enter data while driving, walking, being bounced around and looking at a screen
that washes out in the sunlight has frustrated many field professionals. The safety aspect of mobile
computers and the need to carry devices in your hand while navigating a difficult path has caused many to
wait. The resistance to technology by field professionals is a common excuse given for not investing field
automation.
The reality is that managers still need reliable information and often that information must come from
observations in the field. Whether it is the management of assets, in-situ data for a design project,
construction reports, asset inventories or condition assessments, managers depend on the field
professional’s ability to collect accurate, dependable, and thorough information. In large measure,
effectiveness can be directly tied to how efficiently it controls and manages its assets for the customer or
public's well being.
In the past, field professionals would go into the field, gather important data, write down the critical
information, and enter it into the computer back at the office. Before leaving the field, the field
professional must be certain that they have everything they need and must be able to find and understand
their notes when they get back to the office. The ability to take neat, thorough and organized notes
becomes critical. In addition, many field technicians possess a cell phone. Calls into dispatch centers and central offices are frequently made to get that piece of information from a person to complete the job
or to report results. This adds costs to operations that must be absorbed as part of the cost of doing
business in today’s economy.
Field professionals doing the data entry are so consumed with just trying to get the information
documented that critical information is missed requiring revisits to the site. Notes are poorly written, or
incomplete, or photos cannot be referenced to the written note. In some cases, the information missed
cannot be recovered – such phone service installed or gas line repaired. Going back to the field is time
consuming, expensive, and frustrating. What is really needed is a faster and easier way to collect the data
and enter it into a database, and then cross-reference and tag all information, locations, and
measurements. That would leave the field professional free to inspect; free to make assessments; free to
study the situation, notice the unusual and think without being distracted by note taking or struggling with
a interface that is intrusive and distracting. Orders need to be completed faster, with fewer live
interactions with the central office.
In data-intensive computing environments, organizations are desperately seeking data collection solutions
that reduce the financial and operational drag on their enterprises. The complexities of large-scale data
collection, the need for ongoing data input and the integration of media types make it vital to develop
innovative ways to input data quickly, efficiently and accurately.
Advances in mobile computing and integrated devices such as cell phone with CE, Palm, and enhanced
displays has provided the ‘state of the art’ for field data collection – the “mobile messenger”, whether it is
a laptop, pen based computer or cell phone. Mobility is key, and taking the computer into the field was
thought to be the answer. Many organizations have implemented wide scale mobile computing solutions
but have not seen the effective gains they are seeking, and so the search continues.
As computers continue to become smaller, the major obstacle to mobile computers is input/output.
Keyboards, pen interfaces, and icon driven systems require relatively large input/output devices. For this
reason, mobile computers remain a niche industry. Walking and driving while trying to type or pen enter
field information is difficult at best and error prone, not to mention dangerous. These devices, in addition
to being awkward, are hard to see in the sunlight. This is the interim step and not the solution needed for
field data collection. Simply throwing mobile computers into the field has not offered. But, what if data
input and output were as simple as speaking to your computer? Or, what if the computer could be
eliminated by using a cell phone where short transactions could be performed reducing the costs of
ownership of mobile field solutions.
Field professionals that normally write information down and enter it later, or use a pen based collection
tool would benefit from some assistance. The answer is what we do everyday to communicate, speak.
Speech technology enables field professionals to see & say, they simply speak to their computer, directly
or over a cell phone, just like they have been speaking to each other for years! The concept is simple: use
speech-to-data technology to speed data input, increase efficiency, improve accuracy and reduce the
overall cost of data collection.
