A field-service-targeted rugged tablet, developed using the principle of “marginal gains” – an approach adopted by Britain’s all-conquering Olympic cycling team – has been launched by rugged technology designer and manufacturer Getac.
The Getac RX10 is a lightweight tablet with features aimed at shaving minutes off field service worker tasks, meaning more work can be done, more reliably, resulting in increased time efficiency in a number of challenging working environments.
“The RX10 is a rugged tablet designed by the same team who have designed some of the world’s most effective critical working environment technology – military and oil & gas to name just two – but also healthcare equipment designed to help keep people alive,” said Peter Molyneux, President of Getac in the UK.
“On the face of it, RX10 is marginally better an offering than current-market specialist tablet products. It is the slight changes and enhancements in each feature over and above the current benchmark that make the difference, and means that workers dependent upon such technology can accrue a series of ‘marginal gains’ in time as their day goes on – ultimately adding up to completing more work in a typical shift, thereby saving money.
“If every feature contributes to an accrued tiny percentage improvement or gain in performance of a worker from a time-efficiency perspective, then it means, for instance, a single engineer, technician or logistics professional using a tablet on a typical – but probably unscheduled – ten-hour shift will gain five or six minutes. That may not seem a great deal, but across the day, the week, the year, it adds up. A great deal can be accomplished by somebody in the field in six minutes: an equipment check, surveying a snag, uploading a report, a key component change.
“It’s all down to the marginal gains thought-through technology can deliver. The 3D antenna in a Getac tablet means communication and data downloading is slightly faster; it also means that communication can be sustained in areas where coverage is patchy. That it has a role-specific processor means it does not need a cooling fan. That means less draw on power, but, importantly, avoiding the consequences of the tablet overheating and shutting down for ten minutes. Such attention to detail is a sign of design excellence.”
“The RX10 will significantly outperform consumer-based products, which, while they may well be protected by rugged cases, do not have the performance of a built-for-purpose tablet such as RX10.”
