You can ensure that employees have enough PPE equipment with ARCOS Crew Manager. Crew Manager can be used to track equipment and update inventory (this can also be accomplished in ARCOS Mobile Workbench). This data usage can help replenishment thresholds and mark that crews have essential safety equipment before they head out to a job site.

With some initial set-up, Crew Manager customers can manage hotel logistics. The concept of using Crew Manager logistics to plan for hotel rooms can also be extended to smaller tent cities, trailers, or other alternatives like base camps so you can limit the exposure and congregation of workers.

Crew Manager also provides a historical record of who and where everyone has traveled. This information is helpful in the case of a positive COVID-19 test and any ensuing quarantine process that may take place.

With or without COVID-19, storm season is knocking on the door. So, while you’re managing your Coronavirus ICS TEAM – you’ll also need to manage ICS for upcoming events – storm or other.  Incident Manager has undergone several changes that will make creating scenarios and severities – and staffing those scenarios and severities – much easier.

Assigning work to the field electronically is one of the intuitive features of ARCOS Mobile Workbench. One customer is using it to eliminate the need for employees to come to the service center to pick-up work and drop it off. It is also assisting front line crews by allowing dispatchers to do their jobs from home.​

In their case, ARCOS Mobile Workbench creates work orders. Crews are then assigned based on “day of” resources — the last 24 hours or employees coming off other work crews or quarantine.  Once assigned, the work orders — complete with GIS maps and drive route instructions — are sent to the field. The crew members receive the orders on their mobile phone or tablet and go directly to the job site. Based on the type of job, any appropriate forms are displayed so workers can collect the needed information (repair, damage assessment, inspection, etc.).  After the information is collected in the mobile app, it is immediately transmitted and available to the dispatcher.

The dispatcher can then operate ARCOS from their home office. This works for contractors, mutual assistance partners, and can be used even if retired workers are called in to supplement a workforce.

In this example, daily work crews that are already taking a hit from COVID-19 are facing a huge storm that is approaching fast. The need is there to enlist both contractors and mutual assistance providers to help. Using ARCOS Resource Planner, organizations can enter the number of resources they think they need to manage this event. If you are a utility that uses RAMP UP — you’ll already know the stick count from the RAMP-UP allocation for the resources you’ll be getting and will be able to enter that number into the appropriate field. ​

Now, using Resource Assist Lite, a request for resources is created and sent to any mutual assistance partner or contractor – or for RAMP-UP users, it is sent as a request to the utilities RAMP-UP has designated you’ll be receiving the resources from. The resources in turn respond by uploading their roster in the format that is specified so everyone can avoid receiving multiple email attachments.  If ARCOS Crew Manager is in play, the rosters are uploaded into the solution which decrements the stick counts in Resource Planner. If the paid version of Resource Assist is being used, these rosters will automatically upload to Crew Manager. You now can manage both employees, mutual assistance resources and contractors in one system. You have complete crew visibility while two crises are simultaneously occurring.

Now that the resources from your partners are in Crew Manager, AND you have Callout – you can use the ARCOS Siren solution to send safety checks and messages to crews in the field.  Some examples include:​

• Sending a link to download the ARCOS Mobile app where crews will be able to receive jobs, and access other information or forms​
• Embed and a send a link that could display a video to easily train them on how to use the mobile app or relay other safety messaging​
• Provide messaging of any kind to all resources and provide the ability for them to respond.  You could use Siren to communicate and distribute safety checklists, distribute onboarding information or checklists, or send staging instructions ​
• Deploy a daily protocol like monitoring employee temperatures, or a daily employee health survey — the link you send in siren as a text could open in the ARCOS mobile app displaying a daily temp recording form, so you have documentation. ​