[PLUG] Hand-held Computers For Data Acquisition

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Sat Mar 20 15:21:44 UTC 2010


   While meeting with one of my clients this past week I identified a need
for automating data acquisition in a gold mine mill. This is a harsh, dirty,
noisy environment, but every shift has compliance monitoring requirements
for several regulatory permits.

   Now the mill workers enter values on paper forms and carry them to the
environmental office where an environmental tech (with a Masters degree)
spends too much time keyboarding the hand-written data into the spreadsheet
they're current using (replacing that 'storage' system is what we're doing
for them). One page is legal size and jammed with boxes for
measurement/observations; other pages are letter size. The entire work flow
is highly inefficient and error prone.

   I offered to provide my client with options to automate the data
collection using tablet computers or, preferably, hand-helds that are
ruggardized and sealed for use in industrial environments. I think that
entering data via keys would be better than entering by stylus because it
eliminates the unable-to-interpret problem of scrawled numbers.

   My perception of the tool is that these units would run linux, use SQLite
as the back end, and have a simple app (python, ruby, whatever) that
presents the measurements to be made, one-by-one in a yet-to-be-determined
sequence, and allows the worker to key in the values (numbers or text as
appropriate). The computers would then be carried to the environmental
office where the data would be transferred to our permit compliance
management system, or there could be docking stations in the mill. This
system could also be expanded to water and air quality monitoring at various
mine sites (out-of-doors) where the wells, streams, and other sampling sites
are not instrumented. (It's difficult to instrument sites that are under
10-15 feet of snow at 6,500+ feet elevation.) There is also the potential to
expand this type of automation to other aspects of the mine such as
operations and maintenance, safety, and security. The company is very open
to automating what makes sense as a way for employees to be more productive
and to reduce errors.

   So, if you're interested in doing this hardware/software project as part of
your business, please contact me off the list. This would be _your_ business
opportunity, and our only involvement would be introducing you to our client
and ensuring the integration of data transfer with our system.

   You'll also get the opportunity to visit beautiful Elko, NV, and the
mine/mill site 50 miles to the northwest. :-) I'll provide hotel and
restaurant recommendations.

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |  Integrity            Credibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.        |            Innovation
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863



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