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    Outdated  2-step "read and score" methods caused more errors to be committed and they were much slower.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 :

Sierra DigiTally:

1. Hold RapidScan Ruler against the lumber board 
2. Aim and Fire the Laser

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

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.             Next >>

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