Need suggestions for touch-screen data collection system

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 02:27:01PM -0500, Steve Wiltsie wrote:
> They are wanting me to investigate the possibility of installing
> touch-screen data collection stations similar to what you see for waiters in
> a restaurant - a touch data input screen with a card reader attached.   The
> cards would be used to identify the worker and the item being worked on.
> The touch screen program would need to prompt for the department and job.
> The cards would have to be barcoded rather than magnetic due to the amount
> of welding done in the plants.  This would be used to clock the employees in
> and out of the various jobs they work on during the day and as a time clock.
> 
> I'm not planning to have filePro produce the touch-screen display but rather
> use the PC based software with the collection stations to accumulate the
> data and then transfer it to the Unix system as an ASCII file at the end of
> the day.
> 
> My question to this group is to see if any of you have any experience with a
> hardware/software combination that may apply to this need.  The current plan
> would be to get one for testing at first and then additional units as
> needed.  As you might imagine, the hardware would have to stand up to heat
> up to 100 degrees and cold down to around freezing.  If needed, we could put
> the equipment in enclosures that could be kept above a minimum temperature
> but cooling them would be out of the question.

My snap answer, if it's practical, would be to give everyone a barcoded
badge, and print job number barcodes on the traveler tickets (if you
have such), and have them scan their badge and the traveler.  You
could, I suppose, put a chart with department barcodes on the wall by
the scanner (or chained to it, if it was portable.

Would an approach like that collect enough data for your situation?
You can get completely untethered RF scanners cheap these days.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

        "They had engineers in my day, too."  -- Perry Vance Nelson