Tablets cure blocked pipes

GOING MOBILE: Drainage engineering officer Chris Carter and contracts and reticulation supervisor Warren McKeown with the tablets which have changed the way staff operate. Photo/Stuart Munro

A dose of tablets means some Wanganui District Council staff are literally taking care of business on the run.

These tablets are not medication but rather mobile computers (tablets), which mean the staff can access all manner of data in the field without having to go back to their office and search through paperwork.

Infrastructure staff have been using the tablets for about six months, another example of the council's involvement with the Whanganui Digital Leaders Forum (WDLF).

The council is one of 10 sector groups which form WDLF, which has a goal to achieve "100 per cent connectivity" for all people and organisations in the district.

For the infrastructure staff it has meant a transformation in the way they do business.

Warren McKeown, contracts and reticulation supervisor, said the tablets gave them access to all the information they could need.

"It brings our office out into the field. A contractor can ask us what infrastructure is in a particular street and we can revert to the tablet and tell him where the pipe work is," Mr McKeown said.

Before getting the mobile computers, it usually meant getting back to the office to use their desktop computer or other paperwork. But now it can all be called up on the tablets.

Mr McKeown said the tablets were easy to use, easy to navigate and gave him access to all the information he would need. That included data about the major infrastructure the council was concerned with, such as water bores, pump stations and in-ground water services.

They are all on remote access, so staff can see what's happening and how each part is running.

"We can see exactly how much pressure is in one section of pipe at any time of the day. Before, we had to visit the site and use a gauge to get that same information," Mr McKeown said.

The Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 tablets locate underground assets using the Geographic Information System (GIS).

The council waited for software which was compatible with its systems, as well as the right kind of hardware which was sturdy enough to be used in the field.

While infrastructure staff were the first to use tablets in the field, other departments will do so in the near future.