DECEMBER 2017 | 27 |
Read online at www . proinstaller . co . uk |
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‘ Now that everyone has a smartphone with GPS , there is a lot of potential for low cost replacements
’ a mobile phone . For instance , parents can ‘ ring-fence ’ an area and get an alarm if their child wanders beyond the limits . It ’ s also possible to establish your innocence of a crime if you can prove from tracking that you were nowhere near at the time . Facebook has recently added a feature that helps in the case of a terrorist attack or other disaster like a fire or earthquake . There ’ s good as well as bad .
The case against
Apart from not wanting to be caught doing something that we shouldn ’ t , the case against tracking individuals pretty much comes down to the loss of privacy . Extreme privacy advocates argue that all personal information should be protected , particularly as an authoritarian government could abuse it . There is a more pragmatic view that suggests that there should be certain controls on personal information but that an authoritarian government would rapidly remove protections once it was in power anyway . Just look at Russia .
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Business benefits
Tracking vans and lorries has been around for some years but it has always been very expensive . Now that everyone has a smartphone with GPS , there is a lot of potential for low cost replacements .
Software from my company , Powered Now , enables companies to deploy solutions that let individuals within the business to be tracked . Of course , permission has to be given first and we are not the only people able to supply this type of technology .
There are many ways that it can be used to simplify administration , eliminate paperwork and improve efficiency .
One way to cut down drastically on administration effort is by automatically booking people into
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and out of jobs based on their arrival and departure from the job . While things like lunch breaks and trips to the builder ’ s merchants must be considered , this offers the opportunity to do precise timebased billing ( or tracking actual cost when the job is fixed price ) based on precise numbers without the hassle of timesheets . That ’ s because time and location stamping can provide an error-free record all with no manual intervention .
When the real-time location of staff is known , this greatly increases the efficiency of responding to emergencies and call-outs . There is no need to ring round . The nearest people and the time that will be taken to respond can be determined electronically .
With a system that shows all jobs on a map , it is just a small
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step further to be able to minimise driving between jobs . Driving time is dead time so this can help to improve profitability .
The last obvious benefit is making sure that staff and vehicles are acting responsibly wherever they are . The mere fact that colleagues know that they are being tracked is most likely to eliminate poor behaviour . As is well known , the certainty of being caught is the biggest deterrent of all .
About the author Benjamin Dyer is CEO and co-founder of Powered Now . Powered Now ’ s mobile app aims to take the pain out of paperwork for installers , electricians , builders and other trade businesses .
www . powerednow . com
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