Sunday, 6 May 2012

iPad and Engineering

The role of a reliability engineer is to get the most out of your equipment and that means the REs must always be looking for new technologies. The iPad or tablets can be a fantastic tool for engineers or maintenance department to utilise.



Tablets allow for the reliability engineer to manage projects out in the workshop.  Being locked into the office to use the computer can restrict the RE from where they need to be, out working with the maintainers, developing projects and promoting the reliability culture. 

Both Alex and I use an iPad to manage our projects, meetings, emails and as a diary.  We have found that taking the step to tablets eliminates the need for diarys.  There is also huge potential for the use of tablets in the maintenance department moving forward as other technologies improve. 

Paper work could be eliminated through the use of tablets by maintainers.  Work orders can be completed at the job and instantly updated.  Machine specs or manuals can be access without leaving the job.  Live machine data (VIMS, VHMS etc) can be monitored from an iPad as you watch the equipment in operation to identify performance issues.  The only limit on what it can be used for is the desire of the company to adopt new technologies into their systems.

We will be blogging about new ways to use an iPad for work each month.  The future of iPad use in engineering is very exciting and will greatly improve the RE role for all aspects of failure prevention. 



If you have any questions about using the iPad at work feel free to comment or email us.

Adam Chater - adam.chater@miningreliability.com

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