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Global designer and manufacturer of rugged computing devices, Getac, has signed a deal to supply Southern Water with 380 F110 Windows 8 fully rugged tablets for field service use...

The devices will be a critical component of Southern Water’s Work and Asset Management and Management Information (WAMMI) initiative, designed to streamline operations out in the field and improve service for customers.

Southern Water selected Getac as its hardware supplier of choice following feedback from field operatives who rated the F110 tablet as superior to their existing hardware. The utility provider was also impressed by Getac’s service levels and ability to deliver a fully rugged device at a cost-effective price.

Alex Chandler, WAMMI Business Lead, Southern Water, says: “We needed a device with a large screen and rugged reliability for our field workers to effectively work with our geographic information system (GIS). After field testing, we found a very high user acceptance for Getac and the devices were cost-effective. As a result, we’ll have rolled out more than 300 Getac F110s to our teams by the end of June.”

 

The new devices will provide a substantial efficiency boost for Southern Water. Thanks to the F110’s unparalleled connectivity and GPS capability via 4G LTE and SiRFstarIV™ GPS, the devices will be directly synchronised with the utility provider’s GIS solution. This means field workers can easily mark off areas of work and keep HQ dispatchers aware of the progress of operations – information that can then be used to allocate jobs to other workers and keep customers updated.

The F110’s large 11.6” screen provides ample space to display detailed information and allows the easy filling in of electronic forms, while the Windows 8 OS provides a familiar and easy-to-use interface.

The F110 includes Getac’s proprietary QuadraClear® screen which is viewable in even the sunniest conditions, while the touchscreen can be operated without having to remove gloves. MIL-STD-810G and IP65 rated, the F110 can also handle drops, shock and exposure to dust and water without damage. To support Southern Water, Getac has provided a five-year return-to-base warranty and providing full set-up to ensure field workers can boost their productivity the moment they receive their device.

Chandler adds: “We needed a tablet we could rely on in all weathers and conditions, with a familiar interface and high user acceptance – with Getac we have exactly that device.”

The devices are expected to be in operation by the end of June.

 

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Anglian Water is the largest water and waste water company in England and Wales by geographic area, operating 1,257 water and waste water treatment works, with over 112,000km of pipework across 27,500km.  Anglian Water services more than 6 million domestic and business customers in the East of England and Hartlepool.

Anglian Water had an established ClickSoftware Scheduling system in place. With more than 15,000 jobs per day being deployed to 1,300 Field Engineers, it was essential that the schedules were as optimised as possible. To ensure they were getting the most out of the system they turned to Leadent Solutions a management consulting company specialising in mobile workforce management.

Anglian Water’s senior managers were aware that they were not optimising their schedules, often seeing ‘white space’ on the Gantt – effectively idle time for Field Engineers.  System changes introduced over a seven year period had added complexity to the system to the point that it really didn’t appear to be working well.

 

With the benefit of hindsight it was clear that necessary change management rigour had not always been applied. Perceived poor performance led the scheduling staff to mistrust the automated scheduling functionality. Analytics showed that this had led to 70% of jobs being manually scheduled, which accounted for approximately 300 hours per week.

Previous investigations had highlighted issues with data, processes, and Scheduler behaviours.  The Operations Management Team took this feedback on board but also wanted to understand the level of integrity of the system set-up and configuration. As a long-standing partner of Anglian Water we were asked to draw on our niche expertise, and asked to undertake an independent review of the system.

Leadent undertook a 6 week programme of work to review the scheduling system.  Before focusing on technical issues they:

• Worked with the Operations Management Team to understand business needs and goals
• Spent time with the Scheduling Team to better understand their viewpoint and working practices

Their Technical Consultants then completed a detailed review of the system set-up and configuration.  Issues were shared with Scheduling Team to validate initial findings.

The full technical review showed that over time the system set up and configuration had become:

• misaligned to business goals and processes
• overly complex, often with conflicting elements

It was clear why the system was not performing optimally, explaining in part why confidence levels in the Scheduling Tool had reached rock bottom.

Emma Newman, Managing Consultant at Leadent Solutions who led the review said “taking time to understand the current position at Anglian Water opened up a series of questions that prompted the team to really start to re-focus and re-address what good looked like ‘today’. Not what was, or what has been, but what is needed now in order to ensure their system continued to support the organisation as effectively as possible, and was properly aligned to future business initiatives and objectives.

Best practice and process adoption is born out of confidence and trust in the solutions that are in place, which was something that was starting to diminish at Anglian Water.

 

We were able to clearly identify the current position, and have understood where the Anglian team want and need to be. Recommendations on how to get there meant that we could help to re-focus their minds on best practice and make sure that the system configuration became relevant to their day to day workforce planning operations.”

Richard Cartwright, Technical Consultant at Leadent Solutions said “Conducting an overall assessment of configuration and technical set up will always unearth the opportunity to make an improvement of some kind. Taking a proper look under the bonnet and making sure workforce management configuration is working to drive the correct business objectives is vital in making sure you are getting the most out of the tool you have invested so heavily in.

If your business changes, the technology has to be re-assessed to make sure it is still working for you and not against you, and in some cases with Anglian, configuration had ended up in a position where it was definitely going against the grain in some areas of the business.”

During our time on site at Anglian Water, we were able to take time to ensure that employees involved in scheduling activities were trained in best practice techniques, as well as up-skilling the third party IT service provider to ensure on-going support was in place.

At the end of the six weeks, a comprehensive report was compiled and presented back to Anglian Water.  The report enabled the business to understand the systems and business processes that were in place, how this compared against others in their sector and industry best practice.  The report also gave clear and specific advice on the remedial action required to maximise their investment and support their on-going strategic goals.

The recommendations made in the report were completely endorsed by the Operations Management Team.   Working with the Scheduling Team and broader business, we were asked to make all necessary changes to the system set-up and configuration.

Ian Rule, Head of Anglian Water’s Operational Management Centre said of the review: “Leadent Solutions have demonstrated their extensive expertise in both scheduling systems and workforce management.  The in-depth review and improvement plan has shown us that they not only understand the complex technical aspects, but also the business – its needs and goals.  Their no-nonsense approach has ensured that we have been given the right information to make essential decisions.  They have delivered where others have failed.”

 

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This is the incredible statistic that US water utilities organisation Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 25(FBCM25) announced after they eliminated a paper-based workflow and moved to work with Motion Computing's  J3500 Tablet PCs

Now they are fully equipped with the J3500 Tablet PCs, FBCM25 is not only benefitting from using the technology onsite at their sewage and drainage facilities but also in the field as mobile workforce carry out meter readings, inspections and repairs.

“We’ve gone from a manual paper process to a greener, paperless environment,” said Steve Kim, director, information technology, FBCM25. “Now, the Field Operations’ workflow depends on completely electronic service orders, which can be created, sent, uploaded and processed in real time. All the information collected in the field feeds back to the central database and updates the billing software in real time, meaning our billing department has access to the same information.”

A key benefit of using Tablet PCs (or any form of mobile hardware) is that the process happens in real time while the field  staff is are on the actual job site. This has allowed FBCM25 to cut out unnecessary tasks, resulting in a boost in efficiency and a reduction of man hours dedicated to each job. Another advantage that FBCM25 are finding is that the billing department is now able to update and dispatch new service orders throughout the day as and when they come in from the field staff who no longer need to return to base to file the orders. Again this has resulted in significant increases in the numbers of jobs undertaken each day.

Leonela Ruvalcaba, manager, billing and collections, FBCM25, notes, “The Field Operations team, billing department and customers benefit from the real-time access to information and improved collaboration. With the paper process, if a customer called and inquired about their service, the billing department provided the information the next day at the earliest. Now, the billing staff is able to research anything the customer wants to know while still on the phone.”

Taking care of the environment is also an important initiative for FBCM25. The District regularly develops new programs and works to educate customers on ways to reduce, reuse and recycle as well as conserve water. According to Kim, “FBCM25 is responsible for increasing awareness and finding new ways to reduce our footprint. We were able to lead by example and eliminate a paper-based workflow with the Motion Tablet PCs, while reducing vehicle miles, which validates our commitment to being green, saving over 7,000 pieces of paper a year on service orders alone.”

 

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Against a pan-European backdrop of regulatory change, increased consumer awareness of price and choice and concerns over energy security, the utility sector is facing many challenges and opportunities over the next decade.  Motion Computing's Ian Davies discusses... 

Within the industry itself, the concerns of customer service improvements, the aging workforce and enabling a more responsive field workforce are driving many utilities to re-evaluate key business operations, processes and the technology that supports them.

Core to many of these initiatives and achieving new levels of service and field worker productivity is ensuring seamless access to critical asset and customer data. Research has confirmed a strong correlation between a highly productive mobile workforce and ensuring utility networks deliver continuous service and meet customer service standards.  As a result, empowering a mobile workforce is now a key concern for many utilities.  As both the workforce and utility infrastructures age, many utilities are considering wireless technologies to help manage information, assets and workers.

Mobile workforce applications in utilities:

Connecting your mobile workforce with the information and human resources they require delivers many strategic benefits to utilities.  These can be grouped into three main areas - reduced operating costs, improved asset life and increased customer satisfaction.

At the tactical level these benefits are seen in metrics such as increased on-time responses, greater “wrench time”, and more job completions. Travel to the next job is less which not only saves time, but also reduces vehicle emissions, and cuts down missed appointments.

The financial savings of this increased productivity are seen in decreased crew hours and overheads. Further improvements to the bottom line can be realised by automating the work order process to help reduce operating costs.

Additional benefits include enabling seamless, real time and interoperable communications with field workers, centralised support staff, utility management and first responders in emergency situations.  Management is improved by incorporating training, work administration, and performance monitoring.  And by improving collaboration and enhancing knowledge transfer, utilities can begin to address the challenge of an aging workforce.

The applications to enable these benefits can be covered off in three main categories:

Next Generation Asset Management and Analytics

Advanced analytics draw on powerful analysis platforms to present data and complex interrelationships in a manner designed for the business and operational needs of different types of utility employees. From the field, to the asset manager, to the board room, asset analytics provide critical intelligence to ensure that appropriate decisions can be made in real time.

Modern mobile versions of asset analytics provide utility field crews with a thorough understanding of an asset’s inspection and maintenance history and help field crews better understand the importance of the accuracy of data they are capturing.

Real-Time Scheduling

Customer service in the utility sector has been lagging and much of this has to do with how customers engage with their local utilities.

While many experienced field technicians generally know their territory and the likely duration of different tasks, the same does not hold for less experienced workers and frequently, schedules developed by less experienced workers, can result in productivity decreases. Mobile workforce applications that include real-time scheduling prevent this productivity drop-off. As the crew finishes its emergency tasks, real-time schedulers immediately produce new schedules that start from the current location and follow rules for task priority and drive time.

Job Training and Monitoring

Experienced workers carry in their heads the correct safety techniques and job structure. Mobile workforce software incorporates that knowledge and makes it accessible via tools like checklists and context sensitive help. It ensures that less experienced crews meet utilities' safety and compliance guidelines.

As a result, mobile workforce management software can standardise tasks and guide newer employees through each step, decreasing the time it takes to become productive.

These applications also enable better and more accessible asset records, improved documentation, and integration with video and image management solutions to provide remote support capabilities.  Integration standards also enable efficient cross-departmental business processes.

The right platform

A variety of mobile form factors are being used to support field workers in the utility sector, and tablets represent an increasingly viable choice.  The tablet provides a strong balance of a highly portable device with sufficient display real estate to support the graphics rich applications common in the utility sector.

As a result of these benefits, according to research by VDC, over six in ten utilities are either currently using tablet PCs or are evaluating tablets for use among their field workers.

While much of the attention directed towards tablets has been for consumer-oriented devices, consumer devices have limitations when it comes to enterprise-use cases.  The challenges end users express with consumer tablets in the enterprise span everything from core device functionality to management of these devices by enterprise IT departments and their security limitations. The ability to seamlessly interact with backend systems and integrate with legacy applications including support for capabilities such as rapid updating also rank highly in this list of concerns.

For utility service technicians, critical requirements of a successful mobile platform include:

• Durable, yet lightweight design. Failure rates are a critical concern as they can substantially disrupt workflows. Devices designed to withstand inclement conditions and the potential for occasional drops are ideal. Another key requirement is the ability to interface with the display with wet hands or in wet conditions.
• Display daylight visibility. While consumer device displays are visually appealing, in sunlight or ambient light conditions they wash out. A display that can be easily read in these conditions is a key benefit, if not essential
• Application suitability. Many back-end utility applications are designed to operate in a Windows environment. Leveraging these platform investments and ensuring forward compatibility is critical for many utilities.
• Input/output configuration options. Mobile workforce management applications require a variety of input/output configuration options ranging from signature capture, bar code, GPS, image and video capture, multi-touch interface and magnetic stripe readers.
• Embedded wireless functionality. With more data moving to the cloud, a seamless wireless network connection, carrier (3G/4G) or Wi-Fi is critical.
• Unobtrusive, yet robust security.   Security requirements are becoming even more stringent due to increased regulation.  For mobile devices this likely means both hardware-based encryption, trusted boot functions, data-at-rest encryption, and remote lock and wipe capabilities. While security – especially for mobile insurance solutions – needs to be unobtrusive, sacrifices for the sake of ease of use cannot be made. [/unordered_list]

Based on these demands, and the driving force of customer service improvements, an aging workforce and a need to reduce operational cost, the tablet PC is set to become a stable fixture across the utility sector, especially out in the field and on the front line of service.