A growing trend in the construction industry is the increasing number of contractors that are using mobile devices and apps on the job. A recent study showed that 50 percent of contractors use smartphones on the job and 21 percent own an iPad or other tablet device.

The benefits of mobile computing to contractors are clear, given that by nature they are a mobile workforce.  Southwire understands this and we have developed or are developing several mobile apps to make your lives easier and provide you with the information that you need on the job.

Apps available today:

• Voltage Drop - provides multiple calculations and will help you determine the proper wire size for an electrical circuit based on the voltage drop and current carrying capacity of an electrical circuit
• Conduit Fill - Answers the question: "What size conduit do I use with fill percentage and jam probability" per the NEC®? Results can be emailed.
• MC^AP® Savings -Quickly illustrates the value of the labor cost savings when using MC^AP® vs a traditional MC.
• Partial Reel Calculator - Southwire’s Partial Reel Calculator estimates the footage of wire or cable that is left on a reel. It is preloaded with many cables and reels and you can build your own favorite cables and reels for convenience.
• Proof Positive^© Copper - Southwire’s Proof Positive® Copper app helps to track your stolen wire. After Proof Positive® Copper has been stolen, enter the license key and serial number from the recovered wire. The current owner and chain of ownership will be displayed on the ownership data screen.

Apps that will be available later this summer:

• SIMpull® Cable Pull - provides multiple calculators within a single app that are connected by specific pull characteristics and generates individual NEC® compliant answers. Results can be emailed.
• Conversion Calculator - offers various conversion calculations: CU to AL, unit of price to another unit of price, 1 unit of measure to another unit of measure.
• Commercial US Catalog - provides commercial catalog product data sheets, allows lookup of stock numbers, search functions, emails data sheet links as well as stock numbers.

Are you using a mobile device on the job?  Are there any apps that you can’t live without? Any that you think we should start working on?

- Rob Boot