Bob’s Bits for August 2023

Bob’s Bits for August 2023

Halfway through August and seeing ski areas post their opening days for the 2023/2024 season. Wow, where did summer go? From a Northern New England perspective, it has been one with significant water challenges, too much, making on-hill work and new construction tough. It is the weather, stupid, something you can’t control.

Steep is happy to have an article written by the ARENA SlopeManagement folks explaining the system. ARENA brings a new approach to sustainability by enabling data-backed management of a ski area’s snowmaking. ARENA does everything from hardware to data collection and analysis to provide a master plan for your snowmaking slope by slope.

This month also brings information to the table about demoing MountainOffice via the online demo of the web-based app, which enables ski areas to do about 90% of the functionality of MountainOffice via a mobile device. Also a story about a day at the mountain that goes full circle thanks to SmartMountain.

Steep looks forward to seeing Northeastern folks in September at the NE Summit in Portland, ME, or at SKI NY – SKIPA EXPO in Lake Placid, NY.  Please stop by the Steep Management booth at either show, and we’d be happy to share MountainOffice, SmartMountain, and ARENA SlopeManagement with you.

Data and Information

Database of record: Centralized and organized data assists in recognizing and evaluating patterns, resulting in more thoughtful planning and informed predictions.

Rapid, intuitive retrieval of current and historical data (accessible on or offsite) improves decision making at all levels of management.

Simple report generation.

Reduces risk and potential lawsuits.

Supports visualization of current and future mountain infrastructure (e.g. Gazex explosives locations, forest thinning, designing new runs, parking, etc.).

 

Please click on the images to learn more

Ski Patrol

  • Ease of real-time data entry (no more logbooks or spreadsheets!).
  • Use of common language allows for consistent communication and information sharing.
  • Increases safety by minimizing accidents through pattern analysis of incidents.
  • Accident Investigation and Risk Management.
  • Snow Safety (Ski Patrol) Training.

The web and mobile application suite will provide editing and data collection tools for mapping incidents (wrecks, accidents) of any kind.

Please click on the images to learn more.

Avalanche Module

 

Ability to document, track and analyze slope conditions with one tool.

Ease of real-time data entry (no more logbooks or spreadsheets!).

 Centralized and organized data assists in recognizing and evaluating patterns, resulting in more thoughtful planning and informed predictions.

Provides detailed current and historical weather patterns for visualizing/predicting.

Saves money through more precise use of explosives. 

Please click on the images to learn more.

Dispatch

The dispatch and risk module leverage Esri’s Survey 123 for ArcGIS, providing an intuitive survey-form, data-driven workflow for point feature collection and reporting. Data collected with SmartMountain Survey apps, which are available for both web browsers and native desktop and mobile apps for standard operating systems, are integrated with one or more SmartMountain modules, providing real-time or disconnected and later synchronized workflows for data collection and integration.

Each ski resort decided what they wish to display on the Dispatch Dashboard including on-hill incidents, walk-in incidents, on-hill refusals,  missing persons, work details for different departments, ski patrol rosters for the day, clearances, and sweeps.

Please click on the images to learn more.

OPERATIONS LOGBOOK

  • Logs for Lift Maintenance, Lift Operations, and Groomer inspections, as well as building inspections.
  • Logs can record data and signatures, can record stops, station assignments.
  • Logs are tracked by calendar.

INFORMATION

  • Management review made easy through the use of Excel – reviewing a major grouping of assets or a single component of an asset such as a drive or a gearbox.
  • All information related to a system(asset) is in one place whether it be a lift inspection report, a manual, oil analysis, a service bulletin, or a letter from a vendor.

DASHBOARD

  • Every user has a unique dashboard.
  • Dashboards can be customized to reflect a user’s specific needs.
  • Quick access to the status of work and cost .

SCHEDULE/ WORK ORDERS​

  • The schedule function in MountainOffice provides for detailed instructions by task, recording of data such as the temperature of a gearbox, and service bulletins.
  • All schedules can have a time or counter trigger.