How Organizations Extract More Value From Touch Enabled Devices

Touch screens are everywhere these days - from our phones to airport check-ins to trendy restaurant menus. And more and more companies are finding ways to use them to improve efficiency too.

Whether it's tracking inventory in a warehouse, checking patients into a doctor's office, or controlling the AC in an office building, touch screens are stepping up to make work easier across lots of industries.

The tech has come a long way from those pressure-sensitive screens that barely worked if you had long nails. Now most touch screens use projected capacitive tech that responds to delicate finger taps and swipes. And many support multitouch, have better resolution, connect to other devices, and come in super durable versions.

This is opening up jobs for touch screens from shop floors to hospital halls. Manufacturers can track how production lines are doing. Nurses can quickly update charts at patient bedsides. Front desk staff can sign visitors in without juggling papers. It's easier to show just the info needed for the task without cluttering up screens with stuff people don't need to see right then.

When picking touch devices for these kinds of business uses, look for durable builds that can handle tough conditions, accurate and sensitive touch response, high resolution screens, strong security, and flexibility to add more connected devices down the road. Energy efficiency and multitouch/gesture support are also becoming standard wish list items.

The most important features tend to be ruggedness, reliability, affordability and consistency. You don't want these things crashing right when there's an urgent problem on the factory floor or dozens of people waiting at the lobby desk. Making the interface simple and predictable reduces mistakes too. Workers can access data on the fly instead of trekking to centralized computer stations.

As the components get better and cheaper, more clever ways to use touch screens will keep popping up across organizations. Those that grab on early may gain a competitive efficiency edge - as long as they choose devices tailored for their environment and user needs.