Lantronix – The freedom of wireless – Part two – Wireless in the real world (Healthcare Wireless)

Oct 24 2011 - New Technologies and Energy Harvesting [More New Technologies and Energy Harvesting Articles]

Some specific examples that reveal the business value of wireless include the following:

Healthcare The medical and healthcare industries are aggressively seeking productivity gains as a result of the current nursing and doctor shortage. With this situation expected to worsen as baby boomers age and require more care, an increasing number of medical and healthcare industries are modifying their processes by building convincing wireless return on investment (ROI) models. Use of computer-based physician order entry (CPOE) and bar-code scanning for medications is expected to expand over the next few years and wireless communications networks are essential to their success.

As news of medical mistakes become more public, wireless applications are also becoming a key component in improving accuracy and quality of care in hospitals. Now hospital emergency-room doctors can examine a seriously injured patient, order x-rays, have the patient transferred to surgery, and receive the x-rays electronically in the operating room. In addition, physicians can remotely check a patient’s status, test results, medication schedules, or other information based on up-to-date entries made by nurses on their rounds. Quality of care improves dramatically as patient information is more accessible wirelessly and as more accurate information is recorded by immediate record keeping.

Retail Retailers work in increasingly competitive environments, and as a result, are seeking ways to improve productivity, reduce costs, and generate incremental revenue. WLANs and the applications that run over them offer proven solutions. Popular examples include multimedia kiosks and self-service displays that employ audio, video, animation, and graphics to run point of sale (POS) and information applications. By improving the timeliness and flow of information, these wireless solutions lead to better overall customer satisfaction and increased profitability.

A major music store, for example, has set up wireless kiosks that provide real-time streaming of music videos, seasonal fashion displays, ticket-selling services, local web access, on-line music sampling, and other content residing on a video server.

In the future, retailers will be able to install RFID (radio frequency identification device) readers into their store shelves. With these readers, retailers will have the capability to detect when the shelves are empty and need to be restocked – all via wireless communication.

Transport Before wireless, checking in a rental car was a lengthy procedure that took far too long. In addition, the mass of paperwork that had to be manually entered on a daily basis was getting out of control. Worse still, returned vehicles would stay on the premises for hours before being able to be turned around and re-rented. These companies needed a real-time solution to help improve their rental-return process, and WLANs are allowing them to accomplish strategic business goals in new and innovative ways.

For example, to reduce the costs of vehicle damage, a major rental-car agency is using a wireless system that allows damaged cars to be inspected and an appraisal prepared within two minutes. The company estimates that it will save millions of pounds per year on un-recovered costs. It also ensures that crucial customer information and signatures are not lost.

Manufacturing Productivity improvements – inventory management – quality control – All are common challenges found in virtually every manufacturing facility today. From automotive to warehouse environments, the need to attach essential devices such as PLCs, CNC / DNC equipment, process and quality control equipment, pump controllers, barcode operator displays, scales and weighing stations, printers and machine vision systems is common. Wireless networks offer the solution for all these challenges.

For example, a major facility control centre had problems operating process-control equipment on a legacy network that was independent of the LAN. To network-enable all of the process control equipment at the support centre would have required more than 1,500 feet of wiring and conduit spanning multiple buildings, a costly and time-intensive project. Instead, wireless device servers have been integrated to Ethernet-enable all of the equipment in the support centre. This solution also delivers significant time-savings, as over 500 PCs in the support centre have access to real-time information as it is generated by the process control equipment. This eliminates the need for a technician to patrol the floor and monitor each device individually, and speeds the response time when a failure occurs.

By Martin Poppelaars, VP EMEA sales, Lantronix

Part three – Bringing your wireless up to standard – next week. . .

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