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Tablets at work: Disney uses iPads to drive construction project

August 12, 2011, 2:41 PM PDT

Takeaway: The usefulness of tablets in business is overhyped, but they can be great in specialized cases. Check out this example of Disney Imagineers using iPads in a construction project at Walt Disney World.

While tablet sales — mostly the Apple iPad — continue to accelerate, I’ve registered my skepticism about how useful they can be for the average business professional. But, I’ve also noted that tablets can be perfect for a number specialized uses and I’m always on the lookout for new examples. I discovered an interesting one this week in a recently-posted video from Walt Disney Imagineering, which is putting iPads in the hands of construction workers who are building a new expansion to Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

Here are some of the things these workers are doing with the tablets:

Viewing 3D models of building plans
Accessing permit documents
Scheduling
Video conferencing and Webex meetings with architects and contractors

These are little productivity improvements that can potentially streamline communications and help mitigate the inevitable changes that can slow down a project.

Take a look at the video below to see the tablets in action.

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About Jason Hiner

Jason Hiner is the Editor in Chief of TechRepublic. He writes about the products, people, and ideas that are revolutionizing business with technology.

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3 Votes

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Which only emphasizes my oft-repeated statement...

Vulpinemac 12th Aug 2011

... that a tablet is a supplemental computing device, not a stand-alone computer.

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3 Votes

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There was no real work represented by the demonstration in the video.

adornoe 12th Aug 2011

The work had already been done by a computer elsewhere, and the iPad was just being used to display or view the plans. That can be done on any platform and any tablet.

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1 Vote

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Apologies--we got somewhat at cross-purposes here.

Vulpinemac 4th Sep 2011

You are right, I don't know your specific systems and applications; I wasn't trying to speak to those directly. I was trying to generalize a class of hardware and functions that could perhaps supplement or eventually replace your existing systems in the future.

That said, Motorola mobility is not part of google, so I could well see them offering a tablet-based or smartphone-based reader system using Android that's not too different from what Apple uses with the iPod Touch in their own stores. This is the sort of device I was trying to describe when I mentioned a hardened case that included a barcode scanner. I only mentioned Otterbox there to reference the relative toughness of the package over an unprotected device. I won't argue the pistol-grip offers an advantage for comfort but I'm sure if that sort of option isn't available immediately that someone will build a generic grip for all brands of smart phone. It wouldn't be that difficult to design.

In your case and many others, I'm sure the ability to swap batteries is viable, but not for everyone. That said, a pistol-grip-scanner case could easily offer a battery 'clip' that would serve the same purpose of keeping the smartphone/iPod Touch-like device charged since external booster batteries already exist for the majority of smartphones currently on the market. My point was that requiring an interchangeable 'internal' battery is unnecessary and potentially damaging to the device itself. Try instead to envision a modular device where if the overall scanner package fails, the cost of repair/replacement is roughly halved by replacing either the grip/scanner head or the processing head. Where a one-piece unit might cost from $750 to $1500 or more the two-piece concept would have parts replacements perhaps as low as $250 each with the potential for inexpensive software upgrades compared to the old WinMob devices which, while the best on the market for what they were, were also expensive and problematical by many of the reports I've read over the years. I'm talking possibilities, not absolutes.

Even a square peg can fit, with the proper adaptor.
Oh, and while I've not worked in pharmaceuticals, a certain ferro-ceramic plant I worked at used pill presses to punch out inductor beads and other electronic ferrous devices, so I well know the hazards of risking a spark in a dusty environment and the level of environmental sealing needed to protect control systems from damaging 'fallout.'

I'm not saying such a product would work best for your specific needs, but I do see where such a product could simplify and economize warehousing and manufacturing. Again, I'm trying to generalize to a class of enterprise use where such products are now proving effective rather than target your specific purposes.

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-1 Votes

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vulpine: You can't do with a bicycle what you can do with a car,

adornoe 3rd Sep 2011

because, a bicycle is "feature limited", and the iPad and other tablets are "feature limited".

When someone puts the iPad to use, and uses it to do what it's capable of doing, there is no argument that, it's being put to good use, but that usage is of a limited variety and no matter how much anyone tries, the iPad won't be able to do anything that it doesn't have the capabilities to tackle. If I wanted to use air-conditioning when riding a bicycle, it would be an impossible task. If I wanted to turn an iPad into a productivity device, it wouldn't be impossible, but, it wouldn't be a very pleasant experience, and at that point, I might as well be using a netbook or a laptop, and very likely, at a lower price than the feature-limited iPad.

Why justify using the tablet as a "productivity device" when it's not even close to that? It's a media consumption device, which, with tortured attempts to emulate a laptop, can probably be used to provide some productivity, but there is no real justification to go through the effort.

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0 Votes

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vulpine: That MacOS "speech-to-text" is not even remotely close to what MS

adornoe Updated - 3rd Sep 2011

has been talking about with their newest version of text-to-voice or voice-to-text.

Speech-to-text and vice-versa have been around for a lot of years, and I experimented with that type of application more than 15 years ago with Windows 95, and I gave up on them because they were too much error prone, and if Apple had anything like that 14 years ago, then I'm pretty sure that it was just as useless then too.

What Microsoft has in mind for all of their varieties of OSes (for smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops), is a lot more advanced than what you might have seen implemented in any Apple products, or even in Microsoft products of the past.

However, I'm pretty sure that, it's going to be a while before a computerized application for text-to-voice and voice-to-text, will be as capable as person doing the conversions.

In case you missed it, Mary Jo Foley had an article discussing the feature:

Microsoft making big speech bets with Windows 8, Bing

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-making-big-speech-bets-with-windows-8-bing/10303

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