How to find equipment in a large workplace?

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › How to find equipment in a large workplace?

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frankv

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#2512988 26-Jun-2020 15:21

itxtme:

the original deployment costs with ongoing support costs?

Would it be cheaper to hire a minimum wage mother to go round picking up stuff and putting it away?

Handle9

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#2513005 26-Jun-2020 15:36

concordnz: Would a private LoRa network be a new tech possibility for this old problem?

Excellent Range & penitration (compared to RFID)
Secure (ish)
& sensors/tags are designed to run off battery = long life

Use 2-3 basestations per floor(for triagulation purposes)
.
Set location polling to 3-4x the expected idle location time of the equipment. (If equipment only needed every 1-2hrs - triangulate location every 15min - if it's needed every 30min - triangulate every 5min)

& map it via a phone/tablet App.
Option to only view equipment on you current floor(to avoid info overload)

(It would need someone to develop it - I don't know of it used anywhere - should be easy'ish to redevelope a rfid solution & reprogram the backend for LoRa

Lora/UWB solutions are available off the shelf.

afe66

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#2513709 27-Jun-2020 16:53

But isnt that what techs are for ? 😋😋

turb

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#2514222 29-Jun-2020 09:12

afe66: But isnt that what techs are for ? 😋😋

Yes indeed! But in my advancing years I like to have the youngsters rushing around while I do the more cerebral stuff!

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turb

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#2514227 29-Jun-2020 09:28

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful and imaginative ideas - this is what makes GZ such a treasure trove.

For each piece of equipment the buttons display its database data, when you click on the dropdown menu it updates the database.

The buttons update when you change something, and the page re-renders every 10 seconds so you can see if someone else has changed something.

A real coder would be aghast at this Frankenstein's monster, but it works.

The only thing I'd still like to do is have the CSS so the button is red when the kit is BUSY and green when it's FREE.

Of course it still relies on my colleagues updating the info, but I think they are much more likely to use this than a whiteboard that may be 150m away.

*"Kitenga" translates as "watching" or "view".

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afe66

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#2514394 29-Jun-2020 13:27

Haemacues?
I can never find one when I want one..

Quic Broadband

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chevrolux

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#2514425 29-Jun-2020 14:11

Take a look at Bootstrap for nice styling and responsiveness. And a tiny little bit of javascript to change the buttons.

turb

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#2514480 29-Jun-2020 14:43

afe66: Haemacues?
I can never find one when I want one..

I never want one. If I'm ever asked I reply "A venous gas? Yep sure!".

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MickeyD

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#2514747 29-Jun-2020 20:55

Thanks @turb. I suspect this is a problem that occurs at every hospital. While a LORA solution would be great, getting funding signed off for that is a whole lot more work than a basic digital whiteboard.

I'd love to know if the team at CMDHB have approached this problem. I saw some optimisation work they did modelling attendant movement a while back.

As a proof of concept, your page seems functional. I'd be keen to hear how this works out in practice - i.e. buy in from staff, and associated change in behaviours. You'd hope people will still return items to their designated base when they've finished with them. And, given you record where they went, could optimise the location of where devices are homed. (Assuming there's physical space of course)

I like the idea that it's a one-click and it's done sort of thing. I could imagine having a QR code on each asset that takes you to the whiteboard so people can access it quickly from their mobile.

Where I work, most of the time people will update the physical whiteboard. Except when they get busy or there's no pen, or it's a trauma, or an arrest, or any multitude of other reasons. Likewise they'd return it immediately, as that's the expected behaviour. Unless they need it again soon, or there are other more pressing tasks like securing the airway. Knowing the location of an ultrasound without having to go to its physical whiteboard offers some benefits over our current solution.

Is there any point in having "free" or "busy" status? If it's not at its home location, then the device is probably busy. And if it's not busy, but they haven't returned it, I doubt our guys will reliably update the status to "free" but leave the location where it is. (Although, the change in process and advantages it offers might change that behaviour). Could you have the last update time instead of free/busy? e.g. [X-Porte 1] has been in [OT 1] for 35 min?

I could offer some help with the code. You don't need a separate handler for each device (e.g. FindFun1-FindFun6) or destination script - that's way too laborious to maintain.

Also, you probably want some sort of input validation before writing to your database - particularly if it's world accessible. I'll pm you.

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