Cambridge going PlayBook
Posted Mar 16, 2012 11:07:16 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The City of Cambridge has been able to use gas tax funding from the federal government, partly, in a high-tech way, with partners RIM and IBM.
IBM products are being used for work management, and Cambridge is working with the IBM research team to develop new systems, new software, and analytics that help the city better manage its infrastructure needs.
Cambridge Director of Asset Management, Mike Hausser told 570 News, Cambridge is also working with IBM to get the city to mobilize its work force, “so that we get the technology in the hands of our people in the field, so that they can be more effective, get access to information when they need it, and they can coordinate a lot better.”
Hausser said on the RIM side of things, “that is the platform we’re piloting to actually deliver that mobilization of technology to our field workers.” Hausser says the pilot program will be in the Transportation and Public Works Department, using the BlackBerry PlayBook as their field device.
“It will be used for their work orders, currently they use paperwork orders, which contain the information on what they need to do, where they need to do it, and a little bit of history behind it. That will now become electronic, instead of paper,” Hausser said.
The work crews will be able to record information directly into their PlayBook, and send the information right back to the office in real-time, “there’s a huge amount of administrative improvements that we’re going to be making.”
This initiative will also save a lot of paper in printing out work-orders, records, and more.
Hausser said after this pilot program, more departments will get onto this new system using IBM software on the PlayBook, “we are starting with inspection activities in a few weeks, then, as technology advances and as systems are tweaked, it will incrementally roll out to different crews; in water, waste-water, roads, and so on.”
“We’re all trying to do as much as we can, so this is really about being more efficient. The more efficient our people can be, the work can be done, and the more maintenance that can be done, that will all help us in the long term, overall, reduce costs going forward.”
The gas tax credits have also been used directly on infrastructure investments such as water, roads, and sewers.
