Jan/Feb 2004

Peter Duffy, a water industry contractor working for clients such as Yorkshire Water, has become one of the first companies in the world to issue its field staff with digital pens that can capture data from handwritten job reports as they are created, and feed it back to base wirelessly in near-real time.

The company has chosen Destiny Wireless, a recently formed specialist in this field, to supply the system, which taps into digital pen technology from Anoto (m.logistics, issue 7). In this case the operator is using the Sony Ericsson Chatpen.

On completion of each job, details are written down by field workers on a special paper form, and the information is simultaneously captured and translated into digital form by technology within the pen itself. This data is fed immediately via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a GPRS-enabled mobile phone carried by each worker, and is transmitted back to the company's corporate computer in XML format for recording or actioning as necessary.

Following a 12-week trial, the company has ordered 60 of the pens, and now plans to roll out the technology across the field service team at DrainsAid, its utility services trading division.

David Robinson, Peer Duffy's business development manager, is enthusiastic about the concept. "We have considered a range of alternative technological solutions to provide real-time feedback from operators in the field, including laptops, PDAs, SMS messaging and the digital pen." He says improved customer service was one of the key attractions of the system, and Destiny Wireless adds that this is one of the first implementations where that was a pre-eminent factor.

Robinson says the solution had to be both cost-effective and easy to implement. "The digital pen was the only one that satisfied both these needs. It is by far the simplest of all technologies to introduce, allowing rapid deployment with on-the-job training and was, in our view, the least expensive to buy and run and the most user-friendly."