Computerworld - Off-the-shelf consumer handheld computers are starting to show up in some of the most precarious of workplaces.
For instance, about 1,700 NextEra Energy technicians use Apple iPod Touch devices while they service gargantuan energy-generating wind turbines.
The iPods are loaded with technical information and repair diagrams that technicians access while working about 300 feet above the ground inside and outside of turbines at the clean energy provider's wind farms.
With the information so close at hand, a technician won't have to climb down a ladder and drive a truck back to a company office to search for information on a PC, said Lakshman Charanjiva, CIO of the Juno Beach, Fla.-based utility.
Charanjiva said he came up with the idea to provide the iPods to the wind turbine techs during a visit to a wind energy farm in West Texas. While he was there, he climbed with technicians up a ladder into the dark enclosure of a turbine in 110 degree heat.
"It's not something you want to do if you have a fear of heights or closed spaces," Charanjiva told an audience at the Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders conference in Tucson earlier this month. "I needed to do something for those guys to save them time going back and forth."
Charanjiva said that he has estimated that use of the iPods has cut six to eight hours of work per technician per week since the program was implemented about a year ago. He also noted that iPods are up to 10 times less expensive than a likely alternative solution, rugged handheld devices.
NextEra is also in the process of putting Wi-Fi hotspots inside of its service trucks. That will make it possible for technicians to access the Internet and the corporate network from a perch atop a wind turbine.
The utility is now considering whether to equip technicians' hardhats with video cameras so they can stream videos of repair problems to experts in the company's offices, Charanjiva said. The key consideration is whether the Wi-Fi hotspots will provide sufficient bandwidth to support the video streams, he said.
Charanjiva acknowledged that the company's iPod program is "not rocket science, but has been a huge benefit" to NextEra.
Meanwhile, NextEra subsidiary Florida Power and Light has deployed 500 iPads to replace rugged tablets that technicians use during power outages.
The iPads, which cost less than $500 apiece, are replacing ruggedized tablets that cost $5,000 each. While rugged devices often last five years or more, and iPads typically last two years or less, "the difference in price is worth it," Charanjiva said.
Since many houses now have two-way smart meters, technicians can use the iPads to easily track the locations of homes that experience power outages.
During a hurricane, if outage locations are delivered to tablets in trucks, technicians can identify patterns more quickly than they could in the past, and they can use that information to figure out the locations of switches that could be out of service.
NextEra can also overlay weather satellite information about the path of a storm on top of the outage data to decide where to send repair crews.
Having that data has helped NextEra come closer to its goal of restoring service after storms within 24 hours, Charanjiva said.
This version of this story was originally published in Computerworld's print edition. It was adapted from an article that appeared earlier on Computerworld.com.
Read more about Mobile/Wireless in Computerworld's Mobile/Wireless Topic Center.
You are previewing premium content. 
Free Insider Guide