What Does Future Hold for Mobile Technology?test

By Dave Lubach, Associate Editor

April 2016

Will the current state of mobile technology — namely smartphones, tablets and two-way radios — be relevant in another decade? 

“We’ll probably be laughing at our iPhones in another ten years,” says DuPlessis, but she and Turner offered two possible scenarios.

“For us in facilities, it will include more acceptance of things like using the community to troubleshoot things,” DuPlessis says. “You’ll see more of that happening. It already is happening, but I think hopefully, we’ll start to see more accepted use of it. Some issue, like electrical troubleshooting for something you’ve never seen before, you will go to a discussion board online and enter a question to get feedback.

“On some of these questions you just want to hear from somebody else who’s been down that same road and be able to ask in an online environment where there’s no ridicule because you don’t know the answer can be helpful.”

Turner’s scenario includes technicians wearing devices.

“The handheld devices are too easy to leave behind in the office, on the job, or in the truck,” Turner says. “A wearable device goes where the technician goes. An interactive, wearable device that communicates with the integrated smart building technology in the organization’s physical plant may be right after that.”

No matter what technology or trend emerges, a younger, tech-savvy workforce will help departments bridge the gap to the future.

“I can only talk for our particular department, but I feel like we are on the right track,” she says. “We are coming quickly to a point where more of our older generation of tradespeople are retiring and being replaced with younger individuals, which has lined up perfectly with our transition to the latest mobile technology. I think that it was a very big step for us to go paperless, and it came at the perfect time for most of our staff.”