Sierra RapidScan Ruler
Sierra's Patented Ruler for End-Tally is a practical and economical solution.
Sierra
RapidScan Ruler is designed to scan lumber-widths to end-tally quickly.
By shooting a single laser-beam the operator measures, counts, and computes
lumber-data. No manual keypad entry is required during the end-tally operation;
the system is practical and productive because measurement and calculations are
done very quickly once the laser-beam is fired.
The Sierra RapidScan ruler is made of stainless steel flexible material; it is 1-inch
wide and 24-inches long. Ruler is divided into 1-inch sections. The ruler has 2 sides:
Front: Consists of actual ruler markings
Back: Includes Species, Grades, Thickness, and Length data. These values
can be scanned into the system.
How does it work?
Operator holds the ruler against the lumber width, he aims and fires the laser beam
from the mobile device where the width falls between the marks on the ruler.
Board-footage is calculated, 1 piece is added to the total, and all other
computations are performed. Usually, all happen within a second.
End-Tally operations are not only faster but they are more accurate with the Sierra
RapidScan ruler. Outdated 2-step "read and score" methods caused more
errors to be committed and they were much slower. These older systems
consisted of a ruler attached to a device to visually read and then manually score a value-- increasing
the risk to make mistakes while reading and typing numbers.
The following is a comparison of operations required to
tally a single lumber board:
Old/Manual (Attached-Ruler) Method:
1. Hold Ruler (and handheld) against the lumber board
2. Look at the ruler, visually read the measurement
3. Look at the Computer Keypad
4. Decide to Round up or down (i.e. 2¾"
= 3")
5. Enter the corresponding Measurement by hand
Sierra DigiTally:
1. Hold RapidScan Ruler against the lumber board
2. Aim and Fire the Laser
In Sierra DigiTally, operator's eyes remain at the lumber board and the ruler, and
his hand remains on the trigger. The action consists of "look and fire"
steps. Therefore, the
operation is much smoother and faster, as well as more accurate. Tallying with RapidScan does not require a lot of concentration
since hand-eye coordination movements are simple and minimized. In other
systems multiple hand-eye movements are needed just to take a single measurement,
errors do happen when worker loses concentration. In Sierra DigiTally, although the operator may look at the computer screen occasionally, he doesn't
have to type
anything, and does not change his position while capturing data.
Manual data-entry is a 2-Sigma or 3-Sigma operation (~ 68% accuracy) whereas scanned
input qualifies as a 6-Sigma ( ~98% accuracy).
Overall operation requires less energy and concentration in Sierra DigiTally which increases worker
productivity over a period of time.
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