Episode 1 IT in the Workplace

Manchester City Football Club is one of the Premier League's top sides.

But maintaining the club's successful position isn't just down to the manager and the players.

IT plays a significant role behind the scenes.

Gavin and Ed in the performance analysis team constantly use IT.

Our software is very varied and one of our biggest tasks

is to research the best of those technologies

and bring them in-house to match our needs.

We use a range of products. It can be anything from analysing the team

through video statistics. We have databases where we collect information season-long.

We can break down the goals scored or conceded for the opposition teams, as well as our own data.

Today, the performance analysis team is preparing for Manchester City's upcoming match against Stoke City.

As a pre-match analyst, it's part of Gavin's job

to give information to the manager and the players on the opposition's strengths and weaknesses.

We build up an analysis package of that opposition team, so that we can tailor training that week.

Gavin is keen to investigate the threat posed by Stoke City's long throw-ins.

I've identified all of the throw-ins that Stoke City have taken.

This is where the ball ends when Rory Delap takes a throw-in,

so if I click on one of these, I think this one led to the goal.

If you click on the event, it takes you straight to the video.

We have a partnership with a company where we get 100% coverage of most of the European leagues.

We can immediately access any stat, any single incidents from a player over the last four seasons.

This helps when the manager is doing a training session.

We can say, "When we're defending, you need to set up in these areas."

The performance analysis team stores the information from these resources

and records their own data to use in the future.

We have different databases that we have access to. This one covers all areas of the football club.

The sports science department use this to house all their information.

For analysis, we can look at every goal scored and conceded by any club in the Premier League.

The systems and databases provide you with a lot of opportunity to be really investigative into your work.

With the game over, Ed deals with the post-match feedback,

analysing his own players' performance.

There are eight cameras based around the pitch and they all cover a particular area.

They can tell us how fast they are running, how much movement they're doing.

For example, Shaun's goal, what the animation allows you to do

is to see where he was at any period of time. That can be very powerful,

especially for work on technique and tactical play.

We can put up, for example, his speed threshold.

The closer it is to blue, the more that is to walking. The higher it gets to red, he's in a full sprint,

so seven metres per second of movement.

We take that information into the dressing room at half-time.

IT ensures that the performance analysis results can be fed back to the players quickly and efficiently

wherever they are.

This is a little media device we use with our players. You can quickly access the hard drive on the system

and copy on a video clip here.

Within a couple of seconds, we should have access to the media device.

The players may be on a plane or a train travelling to a game and quickly you can click on to an event

and within five or ten seconds, you've got that video clip very accessible to you.

Nine years ago, when I started, everything was on VHS. Now everything is on DVD.

The shelves were as recently as five months ago filled with over 4,000 games

and now that, plus more, is all completely online.

That's over half a million minutes of video that we're able to get access to.

I think IT, in our role, specifically as a performance analyst, is vital.

I think we'd find it very difficult to function without it.

It's match day at Manchester City Football Club.

Today, almost 30,000 supporters have bought tickets to watch the game against Stoke City.

And behind the scenes, IT systems ensure everything runs smoothly.

Danny manages the ticketing team.

Each supporter has their own unique supporter number

that they use on the website, give over the telephone or use at the ticket office when buying a ticket.

This number will unlock their profile and their purchase history,

so members of our team understand clearly which games supporters have or haven't bought for

and they can use that information to resolve any issues.

With a stadium holding 48,000 people,

it's important that the IT systems work seamlessly to avoid any problems on match day.

Andy is the IT manager.

On a match day, the IT team constantly monitor the networks

to make sure that the infrastructure

the turnstiles and access control system rely on is working 100%.

The screens we look at are colour-coded, so we can see how full each area of the stadium is.

On the morning of a game, we do a match download

which downloads all the ticket information to the relevant turnstiles

and allows the supporter access into the ground.

If there's a problem with the access card, the stewarding team comes in with its PDA systems.

You put the card on the PDA. It reads the chip inside it.

It then tells you what seats have been booked on there

and whether it is an old card. This is an old card.

I see that a new card had been created and that's what they should have brought along,

which is why they couldn't get into the turnstile today.

If they go off to Supporter Services, we'll re-print them a paper ticket.

The safety of supporters in the stadium is paramount to the football club.

We've got to have that in the front of our minds in everything we do.

IT is key to that, particularly on a match day.

We need to know that all information has been sent to the turnstiles

to allow supporters access through the entrances shown on their ticket.

The IT team watch the flow control, which is the flow of people per minute coming into the stadium.

Green means people have accessed the stadium OK.

Anything that's a red colour means potentially there's been an issue.

There's a code against that issue, things like "game not purchased, access denied".

I think the technology allows us to be proactive, rather than reactive,

so we can see problems generally before they happen.

Everywhere we go, we're surrounded by the work of architects

from hospitals and schools to sports stadia and theme parks.

But how does IT help architects design and create new buildings?

Gillian is a partner at Penoyre & Prasad.

In our company, most of our buildings are in the public sector,

so we build a lot of schools, health centres,

hospitals, libraries, community buildings, as well as housing and some civic and social buildings.

One of the new and striking projects that Gillian and her team are working on is the Wren Academy,

a brand-new school for over 1,000 pupils in North London.

The Wren Academy is near completion now.

The first two phases are completed and occupied by the school.

The last phase will open in the next couple of months.

Will has been working on the Wren Academy Project for the last two years.

This is using a Mac with VectorWorks.

Here I've got the elevations for the Wren Academy North Block.

We've set out all the information using this grid line.

Every contractor and every part of the team has this grid

and all our information is referenced off this.

The computer program also allows Will to add layers or remove information on his digital drawings.

There's information that's been sent to us from different parties of the project.

This is all the furniture, so I can easily turn this layer off and on and send that to the contractor.

In the design phase, Will uses the programs SketchUp and Photoshop to create images for the client.

So this is the SketchUp file.

These 2D lines, the black lines, were originally drawn in VectorWorks

and that DWG has been exported.

Then from that, you can help draw this model.

Then we start adding information and people to this.

Without the people, it's difficult to understand the scale of the space.

The architect's role is to put spaces into a realistic form,

so it's about showing a client what they think they can get to what they're going to get.

And IT is used to ensure that the massively complex construction process at Wren Academy

runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Vince is the project manager.

The main two tasks obviously are making sure

that the project is completed on time and within budget.

I'm using the computer constantly, number one, for communication.

When I go out on site, I may notice something that I don't think is quite right

and I want to show to the architect, so I'll take a photograph, bring it back, load it on to the computer,

email it to the architect and we can have discussions.

On a building of this nature, there's a sequence that must be carried out.

Within that sequence, there is what's called a critical path.

That is certain activities that are identified that are crucial that happen on time and correctly.

One of Vince's tasks is to create and monitor a spreadsheet

which lists and schedules all the activities essential to the completion of the building.

On the vertical axis, there is a list of all the activities identified

and looking across horizontally, it will keep the positions

of the particular activities within the overall sequence and the duration of each activity as well

and how one activity can impact on to the other

and really define the sequence of the construction.

Today, on the roof, we're going to be carrying out the final glazing activity.

We've previously started this activity and most of the top row is in now,

but today, weather permitting, we'll get the rest of the units in.

But rain sets in and the work has to be postponed.

This will have an inevitable impact on the construction schedule.

Because of the bad weather, we couldn't do the roofworks which has impacted on the project

to the tune of four or five weeks.

He'll have to inform the client via his monthly progress report.

I will fill in areas where I feel there may be concerns.

I will do a brief statement where I report on bad weather

and also back that up with progress photographs.

Now I need to look at the activities that are up and coming and how I re-sequence them.

Even at the design stage, factoring in weather conditions

which may affect the completed building is essential.

We can use a 3D model of a building and bring that into our environmental software modelling

and then look at the impact of wind and daylight.

Ivan works with the environmental software.

The location is quite important. That will have a different weather file

which has different temperatures, rainfall, wind

and that has a big impact on the building.

The nearest weather file is London Weather Centre ten miles away.

We'll also input what type of building it is.

We specify the types of room because if it's an office,

it will have a lot less people per metre squared than a school.

The classroom is quite packed with 30 or so pupils and we all give off 100 watts of heat just sitting down.

The software models daylight coming into a building.

This part of the simulation here is for daylighting. This is one of the art classrooms.

Here we see that it's quite bright towards the south window because it's getting direct daylight.

If we found bits of the room were quite dark and dingy,

we could look at ways of introducing skylights

or you could reconfigure the depth of the room, so you get light penetrating into the room.

We couldn't operate without IT

and if you ever get computer crashes, which can happen, the office has to stop.

We heavily rely on IT and it's fantastic what it enables us to do.

Farming in the 21st century is changing dramatically.

With strict standards to maintain, traceability to guarantee and targets to hit,

farmers spend more and more time in front of computer screens.

IT plays a big part in the day-to-day running of the farm.

Everything's going over computerised, registering the calves, paying staff.

Brothers Mike and Chris run Middle Burrow Farm in Devon.

Most of the companies we deal with now want us to use online technology.

All the information on the cows is stored on the computer now.

We can register pedigrees, look at our National Milk Records.

But Mike and Chris have gone further

and invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in state-of-the-art technology,

including computerised milking robots.

This is a milking robot and we've had it here about 12 months now. We've got two of them.

We used to do the milking twice a day, but now we've got the situation

that they milk any time of the day, really, and night.

And there is no need for a farmer to be there at all during milking.

When she comes into the stall, the two ends come together,

so it tells the computer where the cow is

and so the arm comes out then and picks up the teat cup

and then comes near to the udder.

When it gets near to the udder, the two infra-red cross-beams

pick up where the teat is and then the robot arm

puts a cup on the teat.

You see the blue dome hanging down on the collar? That's a transponder.

The transponder IDs that cow.

It says this cow is, like that cow there, 124.

And on the computer, it has all her information, where her teats are,

when she's calved, how fast she milks, any problems she had.

It tells you everything.

Everything that happens in the 24 hours is recorded here.

The blue means they need to be milked, then it goes yellow,

which is basically saying they're coming near milking.

The white ones have all been milked recently.

As the machine is working 24/7, if there is a problem with the machine,

it will ring the farmer on his mobile and tell him that there is a problem.

Some things he can put right over the phone or with a laptop computer.

The milking robot also analyses samples of milk from each cow,

helping farmers to monitor the health of their cattle.

It tells you the cell count, the white blood cells of the cow.

That's how it fights infection in its udder. If you go down here,

we can see 898 is a cow that's just given birth to a calf

and when we put it on the graph,

you can see...

blood is red and it's showing quite high levels of blood in the milk.

That will be gone within four days.

Even more information about each cow is recorded

by an activity meter on each cow's collar.

If you have a low activity, the cow may be ill,

something could be wrong with her

or she could be lame.

That is picked up by an aerial in the shed

and is transponded right down into the computer,

which gives you a graph

and it plots all points how active she is through the day.

When the meter records a high level of activity,

it indicates that a cow

is ready to be artificially inseminated or served.

It shows here her activity and you've got

a peak here when she needed artificially inseminating.

You see there how it's quite high, the peak there?

And this point here shows us when she was served.

A new calf is born on average every two days at the farm.

The computer database has to be updated each time.

We've just had a cow calve and she's given birth.

I've got to find her on the computer

and enter her details, so that she can be milked.

190 is the one that calved,

so we click her there and bring her up.

This is her details.

Her breeding event is that she's calved, which is this one - calving.

It's started the countdown. Days in milk,

DIM, it says nought. Her first day to be milked is today.

Basic IT skills are now essential for any farmer.

IT definitely improves things quite a bit.

You're not tied to a certain job

at a certain time seven days a week now.

In this day and age, farmers have to be very up

with the IT to keep track of what their animals are doing.

Everything is done over the internet nowadays

and we like to keep up with it.

SIREN WAILS

The use of technology in a fire service is really about maintaining the safety of people we look after,

the people we serve, but also looking after our own people.

So IT is a really crucial part of running a modern-day fire service.

Fire and Rescue. Can I take your postcode, please? What's on fire?

-All right. Stay well away.

-'We can't afford to make a mistake.'

The mistakes that we make could be a life. Simple as that.

From the moment a member of the public reports a fire to Surrey Fire and Rescue Service,

IT steps in and plays a crucial role.

The computer systems automatically detect the caller's phone number.

It's the operator's job to ask for the postcode or find out specific details of where the incident is.

You put the postcode in and it selects the address for you.

All the time we're reducing the time it takes to get the machines on the road.

The computers also tell the team which fire engines are best suited for a particular emergency.

Depending on the fire call, for example, "road traffic collision, person trapped",

we need heavy cutting gear.

If we are sent to fuel spillages or major fires, we need foam.

Every appliance has a piece of equipment that is useful to us. We have to send the right one.

ALARM RINGS

There's the alarm going off now.

The printer's telling us where to go and it's come up on the screen.

I've now pressed that button so Control know we've mobilised. Off we go.

When we mobilise to an incident, the first thing to come up is the alert on the screen

which we touch to acknowledge. That tells Control we're mobilised.

As the crew is on the move, the computer gives instant access

to an immense amount of relevant information.

It allows us to look at the route to travel.

It can bring us up house plans, building layouts.

If we're attending an incident, if it's a school or hospital

we can bring up the design plans of the building,

which gives us information on the location of stairwells, gas, water mains.

It also gives vehicle information for a road traffic incident.

It will show us hazards that might be related to that vehicle.

But it will also start showing us where things are on the vehicle that we'll need to activate -

battery isolations, the location of air bags.

If we need to remove parts of the vehicle, it shows high-risk areas.

The computer also offers language information.

It gives a scrolling pattern of countries' names.

It gives me lists of standard questions which we would ask anybody involved in the incidents.

"What is your name?" "Do you speak English?" "Where is the fire?" "Is anybody else in the building?"

The information we hold comes from a variety of different sources.

We have specialist people that go out and inspect buildings and collate information on risks.

We also get information from local councils, the Environment Agency, from the National Trust.

All that information is collated to go into one system.

The IT team is responsible for gathering the vast amount of information available to crews.

Today, Julia is updating the system with a house survey completed by a firefighter.

The crew gathered all the data likely to be dangerous.

We take it into this office and then create the files.

They can see it on their map. They click on that and the information comes up in a document.

-Is this one completed, Gordon?

-It is. We're looking at plans of a local hospital.

We've got all the electrical and gas entry points on and hazard points.

It's our responsibility to put the symbols correctly on the plans from information we've been given.

How do the onboard computers on the fire engines receive the information the team are updating?

When vehicles drive into the appliance bay, it synchronises with the wireless network

and checks to see if there are any updates it needs to download.

We also run an actual private network and it allows us to push information out to the vehicle wherever it is.

Even when the fire engine is on its way to the emergency, the job of the control centre staff isn't over.

They manage the situation remotely.

We stay in contact with the machines until the job is finished.

Whatever they require, we will get for them.

We've got action plans to follow, depending on what the incident is.

If it's animals, it will prompt us to contact the RSPCA.

If it's chemicals, it will prompt us to contact the Environment Agency.

Since the introduction of IT,

the input of data has been a lot more efficient. A lot easier, less paperwork.

IT is a very important aspect of the job

and training and being skilled is paramount. We can't risk mistakes. It's reducing risks at all times.

Created in 1759, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Over 650 people work behind the scenes.

In the Princess of Wales Conservatory, Mike, a horticulturist, is the manager.

Part of his job is to make sure conditions in each of the climatic zones in the conservatory

are maintained correctly.

We're in the Arid Zone, Zone 3.

We have the cacti and succulents and some of the island flora.

In each zone of the conservatory, the environmental variables are different.

We have different temperatures, humidity levels and ventilations.

These variables are controlled by a computer program.

On this screen here you can see all the ten zones.

Each zone in the conservatory has a sensor for humidification, and for temperature.

These are updating the computers every four minutes.

Each zone is given the minimum and maximum humidity level, relative humidity,

and they stay in those parameters. Once it gets below, say, 70% relative humidity,

the misting will come on.

Sometimes Mike has to change the parameters on the computer.

As it's getting sunnier now, we want to increase humidity levels.

We go into Settings and Misting.

And then we increase the minimum humidity level to 60%.

And the maximum humidity levels to 70%.

By setting them higher, that increases the misting levels.

How were climatic variables like ventilation, temperature and humidity controlled

before computers arrived?

In the older glasshouses, the vents were opened by ropes and pulleys.

The heating would be controlled by motorised valves.

Now it's all done by computer.

Another one of Mike's tasks is to update the plant database

which holds information about every plant in Kew Gardens.

The database is used throughout the gardens and covers all the plants in the gardens

so that each plant with an accession number

can be looked up on the database.

So today we've got an agave flowering in the Arid Zone

which needs updating.

You click on January and save that information.

I'll also need to put in a note here to collect seed off the plant.

The job of updating and keeping the records is ongoing.

It's changing all the time.

If we're sending a plant to another botanic garden, for instance, we can pint off the database notes

so they've got a close record of how the plant was collected, its country of origin, et cetera.

There's another database being compiled at Kew Gardens,

not of living plants, but the huge collection of preserved plant specimens from all over the world

which are stored in the Herbarium.

We're in the Herbarium at Kew. In the cupboards are specimens.

The Herbarium you could think of as a library of plants.

The specimens are the pressed plants with their stems, leaves, petals.

The Global Plants Initiative is an international collaborative project between

over 147 herbaria in over 52 countries.

Many of the plant specimens date back to the 1800s, 1820s.

The project as a whole is aiming to digitise two million plant specimens.

These are being brought together in one online environment.

Today Aisleyne from the Global Plants Initiative team

is creating a digital record of another preserved plant.

She's off to the Herbarium to find her specimen.

I've just collected a type specimen. It's a barberi species,

which we will take to database and scan.

It involves putting a colour chart and ruler on.

The colour chart is so we can compare the true colours.

The scanners that we have are upside down

so the specimen can face upwards and we don't have to turn it upside down, as it's quite fragile.

It's quite a high resolution. It takes about three minutes to scan.

And we make a record of this in the spreadsheet

where we put the barcode

and then the date we scanned it on.

And we also put the resolution that we scanned the image - 600 dots per inch.

Once the Herbarium specimen has been databased and imaged,

it can be found here. If we look up a specimen,

this is called Stapelia hirsuta.

This website brings together several resources on plant science.

It includes paintings, floras, maps, illustrations.

And we can zoom in and see the fine detail of the hairs on a petal.

We can also measure the length of the petal.

We have already imaged 140,000 specimens, so you need to have large databases

to be able to manipulate the data accurately.

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