Adapx Capturx Forms for Excel 1.2 enable faster energy audits with digital pens

Adapx has announced the release of Capturx Forms for Excel 1.2, which will enable a range of teams to speed up data capture using Excel, paper forms and digital pens.

Electric utilities are facing increasing pressure to provide superior quality and reliable service to their customers while also seeking higher efficiency in their work forces and processes. Key trends in electric utilities best practices are improving facilities and infrastructure visibility, as well as implementing preventive maintenance programs. Improving operational visibility helps teams identify and address issues before they become service, safety, or compliance issues.

As part of that operational visibility, many electric utilities are working to improve inspection and reporting processes for lines, substations, poles, and vegetation management. Immediate access to this data on conditions can improve preventive maintenance and streamline operations. In many cases, data collected to track these processes is still written by hand on printed forms, maps, and CAD designs, which slows the process.

Many of these workflows have resisted data collection with laptops and PDAs due to the highly mobile nature of the work, and challenge of complex equipment, training, and support. New software for digital pens is enabling utility teams to get immediate visibility to issues, while reducing cost of data collection and data entry and reducing risks from missing documentation. Electric utilities such as American Transmission Company, Burbank Water and Power and many others are using or evaluating software solutions for digital pens to automate data collection and inspections for lines, poles, substations and vegetation management.

Digital pen technology--scanning data as it's written on paper--has been around for years so the underlying technology is mature. Recently there have been more software applications that enable utilities to print their own maps, CAD drawings, and forms. Digital pens automatically collect data directly into Office, ArcGIS, and PDF files from CAD systems.

Digital pens enable field teams to collect data on paper as they always have, while also instantly scanning and digitizing the data, which gets stored on the pen. Data can then be shared with central offices either immediately through a cell phone connection or physically, when the pen is returned to the office.

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