Mobile Workforce Management: Manage Work, People, & Assets in ONE Mobile Solution
WHITE PAPERS FOR UTILITIES:
HOW TO CAPITALIZE YOUR SAAS INVESTMENT
As the utility industry makes the switch to mobile workforce management software, it’s important to get the most bang for your buck, reducing costs and driving efficiency. In this white paper we’ll take a look at how you can best approach funding software that can be transformational for your operations, as well as a few common pitfalls that utilities fall into as they attempt to move their digital operation forward.
MOBILE WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT WHITE PAPER
As electric transmission and distribution leaders think about the strategies needed to navigate the workforce mobility challenges of today and tomorrow, multiple business priorities are top of mind. These include ensuring safety at every moment, building system resilience, and containing field costs. Yet business and market headwinds are increasingly impeding and delaying digital transformation.
Discover pragmatic insights in this white paper
IMPROVE CREW MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY
Who Needs It and Why
Whether it’s an emergency outage or routine maintenance, utilities need to dispatch crews fast to maintain or restore service for their customers. Many utilities are continually losing millions of dollars each year due to inefficient or manual crew planning processes. They need an automated crewing software to quickly identify, assign and manage crews.
How Crew Manager Helps
ARCOS’s Crew Manager is a crew management system and emergency management software that empowers utilities to quickly build and dispatch crews, record work history and accurately report on resource utilization. This not only speeds up work assignments, but it also increases productivity and maximizes cost recovery. Utilities can save millions each year and help customers sooner.
MOBILIZE AND MANAGE INCIDENTS IN MINUTES, NOT HOURS
Who Needs It and Why
When emergencies arise, utilities and critical infrastructure companies need to mobilize emergency response teams and action plans fast. By accelerating the processes of Incident Command Structures or internal protocols, you can address emergencies more quickly, mitigate more risk and potentially save lives.
How Incident Manager Helps
ARCOS Incident Manager is an automated incident management system and emergency management software that empowers utilities to quickly assign teams and activate plans so you can respond faster. Plus, it provides accurate historical data for better reporting. It’s like Callout, but it’s for office employees designated to play a role in emergency situations. It easily scales up or down depending on the severity of the crisis.
AUTOMATE SHIFT MANAGEMENT AND GAIN MORE WRENCH TIME
Industry Challenge
Companies that utilize manual or disparate systems for scheduling shift workers are losing money due to inefficiency. They’re also losing wrench time, which adds to lost productivity and lower profits. Additionally, inefficient scheduling can lead to disgruntled employees and grievances.
Proposed Solution
By implementing an automated solution for shift worker scheduling, companies can ensure faster, more efficient scheduling that adheres to union and business rules. They can save money and employee morale issues by avoiding overtime grievances. And they can potentially save millions by increasing productivity and gaining more wrench time.
IMPROVE THE SPEED AND ACCURACY OF FIELD INSPECTIONS
Who Needs It and Why
Utilities need a more efficient way to dispatch crews quickly, even when it’s just for inspection and maintenance. Plus, utilities could improve productivity if they had real-time and historical access to field worker data. The lack of automated systems keeps many utilities in reactive mode versus preventive.
How the Mobile Inspection App Helps
ARCOS Mobile Inspection App is for crew workers’ smartphones and tablets. It empowers utility crews to get on the job faster, work more efficiently and process repair forms online in real time. It improves the accuracy and speed of routine inspections, enabling utilities to boost productivity and move toward preventive – not reactive – maintenance.
AN ALL-IN-ONE SOLUTION FOR WORK ORDER MANAGEMENT
Who Needs It and Why
Utilities must dispatch crews fast when faced with emergency outages or repairs and maintenance. Most mobile workforce management software solutions focus on project and asset data, not employee performance. Utilities need an automated work order solution that captures more data and gives workers real-time access to job updates.
Why Mobile Workbench Is Superior to Other Solutions
ARCOS’s Mobile Workbench is a work order management system and crew management system that empowers utility work crews to get on the job faster, work more efficiently and increase customer satisfaction by restoring service sooner. Unlike other solutions, it manages projects, assets and people in a singular system that gives workers real-time information. It also integrates with other enterprise software solutions.
RESOURCE ASSIST HELPS YOU FIND AND DEPLOY CONTRACTORS FAST
Who Needs It and Why
When utilities face restoration projects and internal crews aren’t enough, they often manually call on their regional mutual assistance group (RMAG) for contractor support. But keeping track of contractors and invoices is often a laborious process that reduces restoration times and increases administrative burden.
How Resource Assist Helps
ARCOS Resource Assist gives utilities fast online access to utility service providers and empowers utilities to deploy and manage contractor resources quickly and easily. They can also manage contractors and internal crews in the same system if they also use Crew Manager. Forming crew rosters and restoring work gets done quickly.
AUTOMATE WORK SYSTEMS FOR FASTER, MORE LUCRATIVE STORM COST RECOVERY
Industry Challenge
Recovering storm restoration costs is an extremely labor-intensive process that can take months. Gathering historical details and reporting for FEMA is difficult. Plus, there is always the worry that all costs may not be recovered due to inadequate and disparate expense tracking systems.
Proposed Solution
By implementing automated solutions like Crew Manager and Resource Assist, utilities gain a simple all-on-one system for assessing damage, tracking crew work hours, managing contractors, electronically gathering historical data and outputting comprehensive reporting for FEMA. This can cut cost recovery times in half and can capture more expenses, making cost recovery more lucrative.
FAST ACCESS TO UTILITY SERVICE PROVIDERS SPEEDS RESTORATION
Industry Challenge
When utilities face restoration projects and internal crews aren’t enough, they often manually call on their regional mutual assistance group (RMAG) for contractor support. But keeping track of contractors and invoices is often a laborious process that increases restoration times and administrative burden.
Proposed Solution
By implementing an automated solution like Resource Assist, utilities have an online link to utility service providers and can deploy and manage contractor resources quickly and easily. They can also manage contractors and internal crews in the same system if they also use Crew Manager. Forming crew rosters and restoring work gets done quickly.
ARCOS RESOURCE PLANNER PROVIDES LOGISTICAL VISIBILITY FOR STICK COUNTS
Who Needs It and Why
When utilities are calling out crews for restoration or maintenance work, its often helpful if they can build stick counts (crews without rosters) prior to scheduling. However, this is cumbersome and many utilities don’t have the resources to do this easily or efficiently because they don’t have good visibility into their logistical needs.
How Resource Planner Helps
For utilities using Crew Manager, adding Resource Planner gives them the benefit of seeing all logistical needs and pushing crews into Crew Manager even before rosters arrive. It helps supervisors create stick count crews by planning the resources they need and tracking crew acquisitions against requests, which accelerates crew scheduling even more.
ARCOS DAMAGE ASSESSMENT SAVES TIME AND RESTORES POWER FASTER
Who Needs It and Why
When responding to an emergency power restoration event, utilities need to quickly identify the location and extent of the damage to determine the crews and materials required for repair. Often, this process can take days, and this delays power restoration for frustrated customers.
How Damage Assessment Helps
ARCOS Damage Assessment helps shorten the assessment process from days to hours. Utilities can more quickly arrive at an Estimated Time of Restoration (ETR), reduce costs and restoration time, and improve safety for field workers and customers following natural disasters. Using mobile devices, assessors can rapidly report and transmit damage to help speed up and improve ETR forecasts.
“The ARCOS Project is very successful, and is the IT project that we all thought was possible, but that we never achieved until now.”
John Peters | Project Manager | Arizona Public Service
WHITE PAPERS FOR AIRLINES:
AUTOMATE WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT TO SAVE TIME AND MONEY
Industry Challenge
Today’s aviation and logistics companies are struggling to find workers and fill critical shift gaps due to labor shortages. Many companies suffer from an inefficient crew management system that costs time and money due to mistakes such as overlooking available workers or scheduling people who lack adequate skills.
Proposed Solution
Mobile workforce management software like ARCOS’s RosterApps can automate crew planning, scheduling, and management. The solution saves companies time and money by increasing efficiency, reducing operational costs, filling shifts faster, and decreasing administration. An industry-specific crew management system can help the aviation and logistics industries reduce overhead and increase the bottom line.
AUTOMATING GROUND CREW SCHEDULING
Industry Challenge
The airline and logistics industries have lagged a bit when it comes to automating employee crew planning and shift scheduling. Shift bidding and trading often takes too much time and administration. This can affect on-time performance and lead to flight and delivery delays. Not to mention disgruntling employees who want more efficient scheduling.
Proposed Solution
Mobile workforce management software like RosterApps can automate crew planning, scheduling and management to help companies increase efficiency and reduce operational costs by filling shifts faster.
BOOST PROFITABILITY AND DECREASE FLIGHT DELAYS
Challenge
Piedmont Airlines needed an efficient ground crew planning system that could work with their staff seniority and union bargaining agreements. Inefficient staff scheduling was contributing to a loss in productivity, and sometimes led to flight delays that negatively impacted profitability.
Solution
Piedmont implemented RosterApps workforce management software, which automated ground crew planning, scheduling and management to increase efficiency and reduce operational costs by filling shifts faster.
REIN IN THE COST OF RESERVES AND IROPS
Industry Challenge
Airline operations managers, especially the ones working for regional carriers, know the cost to carry reserves. While better crew management might encourage line pilots to give schedulers more warning, an airline needs other tools beyond financial incentives to rein in spending on reserves, IROPS and disruptions.
Proposed Solution
A solution like ARCOS Ascend not only reduces the cost of managing reserves but also decreases spending on IROPs and disruptions. With an automated system in place, schedulers and airline managers can adapt to quickly changing conditions and situations allowing them to untangle the complexity of crew scheduling.
