Apparently we live in a fully wired world, connected together by a web which is truly worldwide. We now have access to more information more quickly than anyone could possible imagine as little as 10 years ago. So has this fantastic communication explosion had a positive impact within our industry?

Well yes and no.

If you are an office based engineer it’s now easy to send drawings, specs and information to all and sundry at the touch of a button, we are now able to get the information to our customers with ease. So what about the engineers on the road, in my experience almost none of them have a portable computer in the van so the internet is of no use.

All engineers use a mobile phone but really only to talk; there is a joke in the field. What is the difference between a good engineer and a bad engineer? The good engineer has the technical support numbers stored in his phone. There is unfortunately a lot of truth in this, it’s now so easy to phone we regularly take calls from engineers who just want to confirm details with us, they already know the answer but just want to check.

What’s amazing is the lack of computers in engineers vans. You can now get a laptop for the same cost as a vacuum pump and mobile broadband from £15 a month but still only a handful of engineers have one, why?

With this simple set up engineers can have access to the information they need simply and quickly allowing them fix the units and get onto the next job.

Most manufacturers now have SMS based fault services but have still yet to solve the problem of getting drawings etc to the engineer on site.

Maybe when 3G phones really take off we will see video help. However, even this won’t solve the problem. If you don’t agree try downloading a service manual onto your mobile phone.