jackh@zehntel.UUCP (jack hagerty) (05/08/85)
I am soliciting information and hardware suggestions on a LAN that can
support up to 25 users. The situation is as follows:
A friend of mine is an estimator for a large utility (PG&E, the largest in
the nation, I believe). Up to 25 estimators work in each district office.
Their job is to estimate the materials required to supply utilities (gas
and electricity) to construction projects; number of feet of conduit, number
of J-boxes, etc.
Presently, the job is done by each estimator pulling part numbers out of a
catalog and filling out a worksheet. The worksheets are then entered into
a terminal by a naive operator. This operation is apparently quite error
prone and much time is wasted as the estimators review what was entered,
correct it and supervise the re-entry of the corrected data.
My friend has suggested that the process could be streamlined and productivity
improved if a local net could be set up to give each estimator a workstation.
Data entry would be primarily by bar code wand to get the system up and running
quicker since 1) their catalogs could be printed with the part number already
bar coded, and 2) most of the estimators cannot type. Later, perhaps, the
catalog could be put online and other improvements installed.
The basic requirements of the system are:
1) Support up to 25 workstations with screen, keyboard and bar code wand.
2) Store a full day's worth of worksheets (he had no idea how much storage
is required, but I think 10 Mbyte should be plenty).
3) Once a day, upload the data by phone lines to a central system at the
company's headquarters where it is used to generate the next day's work
orders.
4) Very little processing involved, nearly all I/O.
5) E-mail would be nice.
There are dozens of district offices so this could mean a sizable sale
if the system is approved.
Any suggestions? Please respond by mail as I don't read these newsgroups.
I will summarize, if requested.
Thanks in advance, etc., etc.
--
Jack Hagerty, Zehntel Automation Systems
...!ihnp4!zehntel!jackh