09 January 2019

Customer Presentation and Needs

A French aircraft manufacturer wished to replace its cumbersome procedure manuals and laptops with touch screen tablets and, as such, entrusted its equipment management project, representing over one million euros of investment, to ELECTROCLASS. Thanks to its design & engineering office's proactiveness, ELECTROCLASS was able to propose a bespoke solution, the TabletBox, its automatic vending machine with doors which would manage the tablets and ensure their in-service readiness.

An ELECTROCLASS all-in solution

ELECTROCLASS proposed an all-in solution comprising several cabinets:

• 2 vending machines 13 doors
• 9 vending machines 12 doors
• 10 vending machines 9 doors

To ensure the stored equipment would always be in-service ready, ELECTROCLASS integrated into the lockers:

• Power sockets required for charging the tablets and their accessories
• A network connection required for synchronizing the tablets with the corporate IT network
• Plexiglass doors to be able to carry out a rapid visual inventory of the charge status of the tablets
• Network switch ventilation for the devices whilst charging

As each tablet was linked to a specific space in the cabinet, tracking operators' borrowing and returns is done by locker. For each movement (borrowing (loan)/return), technicians identify themselves using their work badge (proximity chip). As the users' badges contain their employee identification number, access authorization checks are performed automatically based on a predefined authorized/blocked access list.

As authorization is shown by a two-colour light, the loan (or the return) takes place quickly. The administration software is centralized and offers remote management of users for each cabinet.

Project results

224 tablets stored, in-service ready and 100% secure, assessed at over 1 M€, spread over 5 sites in 21 vending machines.

Thanks to locker sizing, the TabletBox ensures the integrity and correct storage of the tablets and their accessories, by taking user-friendliness and ease-of-use for the technicians into account whilst anticipating future developments for new tablets (to be renewed every 3 years).

The aim was to be able to store the tablets whilst ensuring secure access and to make them available always in-service ready, which resulted in reducing non-quality and in increasing operators' productivity. They also had to be charged and the procedures contained in them had to be updated and synchronized with the corporate network.