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improvements. However, in the second case, 
technology substituted an entire process and 
enabled, not just incremental improvements to 
correspondence turnaround time but a complete 
transformation. There are many examples of 
technology contributing to major leaps in 
performance. 
Mobile office solutions are certainly contributing to 
radical transformation of work processes and work 
locations. 
Cellular and mobile phones have allowed people to 
be "accessible" at remote sites or even making 
travel time more efficient by permitting business 
discussion in automobiles. Laptop computers have 
alloved work to be performed at remote site 
locations or at home, cutting travelling time. 
Combining both technologies allows file 
transmission and retrieval to colleagues, business 
partners and clients. In many industries, these 
mobile office solutions are contributing to change. 
A salesperson's face to face time with customers is 
enhanced by cutting office work. Even orders can 
be transmitted direct by laptop and digital mobile 
phone. A meter reader can update household 
electricity meter readings for billing, direct on site. 
Combining other technologies for input further 
enhance business process redesign. Warehouse 
personnel using a laptop computer and barcode 
input devices can update stock information during 
delivery eliminating processing paper work 
afterwards. 
SURVEYING AND MAPPING: FIELD 
VERSUS OFFICE 
Clearly, the source of surveying and mapping data 
is at the site, not the office. Land information and 
associated infrastucture information can only be 
gathered at the location directly or through a 
remotely sensed mechanism (e.g, aerial 
photography). The office therefore serves as a 
Secondary location need after the survey site. 
Amongst other purposes, surveyors' offices are 
currently needed to post process information 
gathered in the field. Desktop personal computers, 
plotters and printers would naturally be difficult to 
Carry around on site. However, the requirement for 
paper plots and plans is diminishing as more data is 
provided to the client in digital form. Improved 
Computing power and digital storage contribute to 
the trend towards a paperless offices. Subsequently 
office floorspace requirements can be reconsidered. 
There would be less need for increasing floorspace, 
277 
if much of the data processing could be carried out 
on site. It is well known that large construction 
sites use “site” offices. The convenience of being 
located to the daily site work makes the investment 
in portable buildings worthwhile. So, one can 
envisage the possibility of reducing the need of 
office (even a site office) if post processing of data 
into a finished product was integrated with the data 
collection process. For such a shift in work process 
location significant benefits in field equipment 
technology would be necessary. 
TECHNOLOGY CHANGE ENABLES 
FINISHED PRODUCTS IN THE FIELD 
Several recent advances in technology indicate that 
mobile office solutions have the potential to 
substitute office work. 
Penpad computers which have the equivalent power 
of a desktop 486 personal computer provide a 
major advantage when considering mobile office 
solutions: size. By providing input through the 
screen, the computer hardware is reduced to the size 
of the screen. Laptops may have proved a 
significant step for transporting computing power to 
hotels, homes and cars, but for professions such as 
surveying, penpads permit 486 processing power in 
the field. Penpads that are designed to cope with 
environmental conditions in the field are available 
now. (e.g., -20 degrees Celsius to + 50 degrees 
Celsius). Portability and  ruggedness also 
contribute to the practical use of penpads as a 
substitute for office systems. 
Whilst some software solutions for collecting 
surveying data on a penpad have been available for 
some time, only a few software solutions really 
offer the potential to replace desktop processing 
with on-line or real time processing of survey data 
into a finished product. The added advantage of 
recent penpad surveying software has been the use 
of PenWindows as the penpad operating system. 
Nearly all people using computers are trained to use 
Windows or are being trained to use Windows. 
PenWindows offers immediate familiarity to those 
that have used Windows which saves considerable 
training time in leaming another type of user 
interface. Field surveying software for penpads 
which can process large quantities of data such as 
Digital Terrain Models into contour maps or 
volume calculations contribute to rethinking the 
need for office processing. 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B2. Vienna 1996