ARCOS’s Jason Rhoades, author of our recent blog series on Building the Digital Utility of the Future, recently spoke to POWERGRID International about how a real-time view of utility field work is safe and more profitable. Utilities are using mobile workforce management software to gain unprecedented insight into work-site conditions and progress reports for both blue skies and gray. This eliminates delays and helps maintain focus, reducing accidents and increasing efficiency. This type of improvement empowers lineworkers to get the job done correctly and safely, as well as saving your utility millions of dollars during a major event.
Lineworkers have a desire to do all they can to get the job done. Getting the job done sometimes has crews working less efficiently, profitably, or safely than they might otherwise. Nobody plans to have an accident. But if a work site presents unexpected challenges, sometimes frustration can cause a crew to lose its focus. That’s when a job can go awry.
Imagine a crew heads for a job site and based on the explanation of the work expects to roll its truck into position to begin restoration. Instead, they find a fence blocking their access to a pole. The crew considers a trip to obtain a backyard machine or even tearing down sections of the fence. Time is of the essence, and there’s a long list of work orders. The fence is problematic, but the crew decides to work over it. While utilities promote the fact everyone has a voice in matters of safety, nobody on the crew wants to halt work. Even the working foreman with 30 years of experience tells his crew he feels they can reach the pole with some maneuvering. The job gets done. But should the crew have pushed to the boundary of what’s safe?
Some utilities are giving field workers more technology to work with, so they can have a better picture of what to expect at a job site. Utilities taking this approach say that real-time information in the hands of field workers enables them to make the best decision for themselves, their utility, and the customer. For example, companies like Alabama Power and AEP are using mobile workforce management tools to safely speed up restoration, which also helps their bottom line.
Alabama Power’s Power Delivery workers use a mobile damage assessment solution along with mobile devices to eliminate the use of feeder maps and digitally exchange assignments and assessments with dispatchers. AEP is using a mobile app to assign work and give line mechanics real-time information about the condition of assets, outages, and hazards.
A 2019 CIO survey from research firm Gartner noted that, “25 percent of utilities listed mobile applications as a top 10 game-changing technology area.” Utilities are using mobile workforce management software to initiate work orders, assess work-site conditions, and report on the progress of crews during blue- and gray-sky days. There are vendors offering this technology, and some utilities are developing platforms.
Regardless of the approach, field mobility tools running on smartphones and tablets give damage assessors, foremen and lineworkers a way to size up a job site and digitally hand the findings to all concerned for better decision-making. Instead of deciphering handwritten notes on maps or calling a dispatcher to get additional data, mobile workforce management software gives assessors a way to snap pictures of a job site, the condition of a pole or transformer, and electronically transmit the findings. Supervisors can share the information with service yards and crews to obtain the right equipment and plan their restoration strategy. Tools like these can integrate with mapping software for directions to the job. Once on site, the working foreman can pull up the order and identify the hazards and talk about who’s working the bucket or digger derrick and which crew member will be the safety observer. Ninety percent of the time, when there’s an accident, the cause is a loss of focus. Getting away from paper and sticky notes on a work order improves focus. With a smartphone as a kind of mobile workbench, everyone on the crew, even the most junior member, can see what the job entails before they arrive. Knowing the situation in advance helps crews gather the right equipment and material, and a fuller picture makes for a safer outcome.
Field mobility leads to efficiency and profitability
Field mobility tools and mobile workforce management software also help managers and supervisors efficiently direct restoration. When incident commanders have to rely on paper maps and handwritten damage assessments from the field, there can be delays well into the evening before managers truly knows what’s required for restoration—in some cases the delay can be up to 12 hours. Until damage assessor report back, the incident commander is running a storm somewhat blind. When the assessors and crews have mobile apps that allow them to immediately report from the field on the situation and their status, there’s real-time visibility for incident commanders. From there, managers can put together a strategic restoration plan that reduces restoration by several hours or even a day or more. That sort of efficiency gain could easily translate into millions of dollars saved when you have a major event with more than, say, 100,000 customers out of power.
The back-office support team benefits from mobile workforce technology, too, because they’re getting work packets together based on a digital stream of damage assessors’ reports flowing in from the field. These real-time assessments enable the back-office managers to get materials staged, so crews have what they need even before they move to the next job site. Digitizing the collection and distribution of assessments and work orders drastically cuts down on the hands required to process incoming and outgoing data. In fact, a utility can avoid having to recruit additional people to staff up the back-office operations during a major event.
There’s no lack of desire by anyone in the utility industry to get the job done. But putting mobile workforce applications into the hands of field workers is already making restoration safer as well as more efficient and profitable for some utilities.
