Sprinklers and a New IT Era |
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November 2007 From Wall Street Journal Blog Posted by Ben Worthen A sprinkler system that automatically adjusts how much water it gives plants based on the weather isn't the sort of tech system we would normally write about in this blog. But systems like this illustrate one of the changes facing business today: Technology is increasingly becoming embedded in the tools people use and doesn't require specialization the same way it once did. Lockheed Martin has a 400-acre campus in Sunnyvale Calif., much of which is covered with grass, plants and trees. All of these need watering, of course. Traditionally, the facilities crew would program the campus's 70 or so sprinkler systems by hand. If it rained, someone would have to go around and turn each one off; if it was hotter than normal, someone would have to turn each one on longer. Just as often, the facilities crew couldn't keep up and they wasted water or the plants dried up. Recently, the group bought a new sprinkler system from HydroPoint Data Systems, which calculates how much water each sprinkler should distribute based on the plants in range and the soil type, and then adjusts that amount using GPS data, weather readings, and other information. Yes, it's a sprinkler system that's more sophisticated than most corporate software. But Frank Rocha, who works in the facilities group at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, tells the Business Technology Blog that his group is solely responsible for the system. He didn't make it sound difficult to manage. In fact, he tells us it's a huge improvement over the old system. Granted, this isn't a system that uses corporate information or that requires access to company databases. But it's an example of something that just a few years ago might have taken technical expertise to install - at the very least, the facilities group might have consulted the information-technology department before buying the system. We come across examples of this everyday: finance teams who buy number-crunching software; marketing groups who use online tools to spread their messages; the list goes on and on. The tech itself is no longer special enough that it has to come from a department with technological expertise. That's not to say that companies don't need an IT department. But it's another reminder that as the overall level of tech savvy grows, IT's role is changing as well. |
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