Aug/Sept 2007

In this first in a new series of special reports, Sharon Clancy looks at the public sector, where the sheer scale and scope of operations can hamper mobile implementations, but where some exciting gains are now being made

Mobile data has been a boon to utility organisations. Historically, field service applications for utilities were inherently inefficient, largely because of their reliance on paper for job sheets, defect reporting, records and invoicing.

It's now possible to swap all that for wireless data-based procedures, reducing paperwork to a minimum. Job scheduling, vehicle and worker tracking and reporting procedures can all be handled using mobile data. Access to real-time information has also had a beneficial effect on customer service.

However, life is never that straightforward. They may have been pioneers of mobile data solutions, but utility field service operations are quite complex; and that's partly because in order to be truly effective, they require data to be sent in real time from and to the mobile device.

Why? Because job scheduling in turn needs to happen in real time, so that planners can react to events and workers can receive advice on any unforeseen problems that occur. Moreover, vehicles need to be in the right place and the engineer needs to have the right skills. All of these factors combine to present a real challenge for any application developer - which is one reason early mobile deployments in this sector were often bespoke.

Nevertheless, third-party contractors soon started to see the benefits. They realised that the efficiencies they could gain from mobile data would allow them to put in competitive tenders, securing valuable contracts with utility businesses and local authorities.

By contrast, the local authorities themselves have been slow to adopt mobile technology, despite having many operations that would benefit.

This is not just because of an inherent reluctance among councils to adopt new technology. Part of the reason is that the local authority operations are especially complex. Councils offer a wide range of services such as social housing and waste management, all of which have the potential to benefit from wireless technology - but all of which have their own specific requirements.

To make matters worse, there is the tendency for those departments to be semi-autonomous, each having its own customer-service function. These might have to deal with anything from scheduled maintenance and repairs to emergency call-outs for, say, a water leak, a broken window in a housing association property, or non-collection of domestic waste.

The existence of separate customer management software and databases has meant council-wide mobile data projects are few and far between. Instead, the vendors have focused on specific sectors such as housing management and contracted-out services such as refuse collection.

Yet the need for mobile data solutions in the sector has never been greater. Councils are under pressure not just to cut costs, but also to improve front-line services and become more customer-oriented. They have been spurred into action by the 2004 Gershon review into local authority spending, which required public sector departments to make efficiency gains of 2.8 per cent a year, and recommended greater use of shared services and electronic service channels as a means of achieving it. This was followed by the 2006 Varney report Service Transformation, which also urged Government bodies to adopt new digital technology.

Utilities have not escaped either. Regulators have toughened up targets, and the sector now has to cope with ever-stricter service levels agreements. For third-party contractors the pressure is to comply with SLAs while retaining control of their own costs.

Integration

One of the stumbling blocks to closer collaboration between contractors and councils has been the difficulty of exporting and importing the data used by the often-elderly council software and databases, so that it can integrate with the mobile solutions deployed by outside contractors.

The latest developments in scheduling and tracking should help. Off-the-shelf packages make deployments easier, and many now allow sufficient customisation to suit most operations.

Companies specialising in the various elements that a field service application requires are combining forces to offer integrated packages. Managed mobile service provider Cognito, for example, has integrated 360's scheduling and optimisation application into its service offering.

Browser-based applications such as this get round the complication of integrating with an elderly back-end system, so creaky legacy systems are not the deterrents they once were. Codegate's approach, for example, is to integrate the mobile application into existing back-end systems. Even if no back-end system exists, there is a simple rather than a complex solution, according to Codegate: convert paper-based forms and systems into electronic records first, then mobilise the data.

Scheduling

The software calculates the most efficient schedule according to pre-set variables. Even if the application does not require real-time scheduling, some facility for responding to live events will need to be incorporated.

Another consideration is how large the data files are that will be needed by the mobile worker. Some applications will simply need an electronic job sheet that the workers can tick when a schedule service or job is complete. Water or gas engineers, by contrast, may need access to large files such as installation diagrams.

Messaging is another useful tool that many job-scheduling applications incorporate, and can save substantial amounts in mobile communications costs. The back-office sends one message to all devices on the network.

Sophisticated scheduling applications such as 360 Technologies' Dynamic Scheduling Engine and @Road's Taskforce 7.5 use intelligence algorithms to coordinate people, technical expertise, resources and inventory.

Tracking

Utilities have increasingly added tracking to the job scheduling applications. Adding GPS location allows job allocation decisions to be made on the basis of the actual location of mobile teams, rather than predicted location. Adding tracking to a mobile deployment helps compliance with service level agreements, too, by allowing live adjustments to pre-planned schedules. Knowing where engineers are can make all the difference between reaching a customer in the time allowed under the SLA and not doing so.

The ability of tracking systems to offer lone worker protection has been much trumpeted. Potentially at least, this can help employers discharge their responsibilities under the 2007 Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act. It's unlikely to be the sole reason for deploying a tracking system, but it might be a box which any system supplier now needs to tick to get on the shortlist.

Once GPS is enabled, navigation can provide a useful boost to productivity.

Tracking can also deliver soft benefits such as improved customer relationships. Applications such as @road's Taskforce 7.5 also provide users the capability to compare estimated arrival times at customer locations with actual arrival times, working on the basis of the GPS location information.

This information can be used both in real time, to alert customers to unforeseen delays; and in management reports, as a means of improving schedules and reducing mileage and travel times.

A recent study by telematics specialist Cybit suggests that overall, there is only a 24 per cent correlation between the information a manager has on his or her fleet and the actual status of the engineer. Cybit's response to this is to combine its Fleetstar On-line Web-based vehicle tracking application with a PDA-based mobile data solution for job scheduling.

Another development that is encouraging the uptake of mobile solutions in this sector is that it is now easy to design forms that deliver the precise mobile data an organisation requires. This can save on development costs and results in faster deployment times.

ClickSoftware, for example, has just released its one-stop Field Service Optimisation application for medium-sized businesses. It virtually eliminates the time and effort typically required to custom-design and program schedules and reports by pre-configuring order management, optimised scheduling, mobility and operational reports.

PANEL

Case study: Web-based tracking keeps waste collection in house

As a direct result of implementing Quarto's Web-based tracking system, Guildford Borough Council's waste operations department is making cost savings of several thousand pounds per year through enhanced route planning alone. The council provides waste collection services to over 130,000 residents across an area of approximately one hundred square miles with a fleet of 150 vehicles, which are streamed into separate divisions for refuse collection, recycling and street sweeping.

Many councils have chosen to outsource waste collection services because it removes a large cost area from the budget. Guildford, however, has found that using Quartix's real-time tracking systems to improve productivity and service to residents has helped it to keep the £2.5 million budget for waste services in-house.

Quartix was selected after an evaluation of three contenders. 'The Quartix system was the only one offering automatically-generated tracking logs on a daily basis in addition to the live-tracking facility on the Web,' says operations manager Dave Tobutt.

'I get emailed reports arriving every morning, accurately detailing the previous day's operations. Each of our three fleet divisions has a separate access code for its relevant tracking logs, but I retain an overview for monitoring purposes. I can also interrogate the database at any time.'

Quartix's Internet-based tracking service has helped mitigate both the administrative load on the department and fleet running costs. Tobutt's first target was route planning, where analysis of historic routes revealed inefficiencies. 'This was especially noticeable in the industrial collections, where 'crossover' situations have been eliminated.''

Customer enquiries can now be dealt with more rapidly by a simple check of the tracking log. 'This allows us to reassure the resident immediately. We can admit to any slip-ups, or defend staff if everything has been carried out according to our expectations.''

The system has also helped track down a stolen Johnston Compact road sweeper worth £60,000, which was recovered within 15 minutes.

Tobutt's advice to other councils is: ''Review the market; make sure a system will work for your fleet; and provide the required level of detail. The use of tracking technology can also improve lone worker safety.''

PANEL

Case study: Speedier response times on housing services

Property services provider Connaught has deployed Sybase iAnywhere's M-Business Anywhere application to mobilise the management of maintenance services to over 100 local authorities and registered social landlords throughout the UK. The company provides planned and response maintenance, gas appliance maintenance and installation, recycling, waste management and cleaning services.

Connaught's Conntrol application (yes, there is a double-N in the name) is a bespoke in-house developed, Web-based supply chain and asset management software solution. This is used to manage workforce, suppliers, contractors, assets, tenant information and documents.

Connaught installed iAnywhere's M-Business Anywhere to manage maintenance requests and queries better. The M-Business middleware product enables the Conntrol application to send jobs to field staff who have been issued with Pocket PC devices. So Connaught's maintenance field workers receive full details on the job requirements in real time, and they can respond to problems immediately. Once the job is complete, the data is automatically uploaded back into the Conntrol database so that the system is always kept up to date.

'Before the rollout of the M-Business Anywhere platform and the Conntrol mobile application, we used to print off individual job sheets for the field-based staff, ' explains Lucien Wynn, Connaught's asset management systems director. 'They would then complete the day's jobs and return the paperwork for the back-office staff to type into the system.

'The M-Business platform integrated into our application seamlessly, and we can now effectively coordinate maintenance jobs and communicate updates in real time, maximising our productivity and saving additional back-office and administration costs.'

PANEL

Case study: Mapping app smoothes introduction of wheelie bins

South Somerset County Council is using the central National Land and Property Gazetteer address database to improve the provision of waste collection services.

The database contains a unique reference number for every single property, making it much more complete, accurate and up-to-date than current postal addresses. It has proved an essential component of a project to roll out wheelie bins to 70,000 domestic properties, and helps with the day-to-day management of waste collections, which are now fortnightly.

An additional bonus has been improved customer care through the integration of waste collection details within the council's Customer First call centre and on the its Web site.

When the council began planning the move from traditional 'black sack' weekly collections to fortnightly wheelie bin collections in 2004, the challenge was initially to identify all domestic properties, then identify those properties that were considered unsuitable for a normal wheelie bin, and finally to consolidate this information into a central database for use by the Waste Services Unit and other council departments.

'Even at the start of this project our NLPG data was the most consolidated and mature of the disparate address databases within the council,' says Bruce Soord, spatial systems manager.

'The decision to use the gazetteer as the master property list was further enforced by the use of Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) within departmental databases such as Council Tax. This enabled us to identify all single-occupancy residences, for allocation of smaller wheelie bins, at the click of a button.'

The NLPG data was also used to identify properties considered unsuitable for standard bins during an extensive field exercise. Council surveyors were equipped with PDA devices loaded with Ordnance Survey maps and the gazetteer running on a mobile Geographical Information System (GIS). They were then able to identify and record all 'non-standard' properties, including properties requiring larger or shared bins, properties without storage areas for the new bins, and properties without access for refuse collection vehicles.

This information was then spatially queried and analysed to sort new collection dates, routes and vehicle allocations and service delivery.

PANEL

Case study: Real-time data streamlines recycling operation

Masternaut vehicle tracking has helped environmental services company Ward Recycling increase productivity by 40 per cent in it 50-strong fleet. 'We use Masternaut for live tracking,' says Donald Ward, waste management and recycling manager. 'Among the many positive outcomes, we would list a big increase in productivity, much better timekeeping, greater awareness of individual responsibilities and an overall improvement in accountability.'

Each of the company's weigh bridges is equipped with a large LCD screen on which vehicle movements can easily be tracked in real time. Normal practice is to assign drivers to specific vehicles, but on occasions they must drive other vehicles. By using the dash-mounted Masternaut Key Reader to read driver ID keys, management know exactly who is driving a specific vehicle at any given time, which makes it possible to identify the driver immediately should any query arise in relation to the vehicle.

Ward also makes great use of the bespoke reporting features. 'We can pull off real-time reports on individual drivers and vehicles. These can answer many queries, and the system also helps with settling disputes with customers. If we get a complaint about a driver damaging a customer's property, for example, we know without a shadow of a doubt whether or not the driver was on the scene, and we can quickly resolve the issue.' Ward is currently reviewing the idea of adopting Masternaut to capture electronic signatures, and using it for electronic job scheduling.

PANEL

Case study: Less admin for highways inspectors

Having introduced Mayrise's Highways mobile data application in 2005, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council is expanding its mobile data collection with the company's Street Works and Street Lighting software.

Highways is used to automate highways works orders and maintain additional highways-related information - for example, historical street works records, works registers and some financial information. The council also uses Mayrise's MapNow to add context and additional detail to highway-related information by displaying the asset or feature against Ordnance Survey maps.

The mobile solution was introduced at the same time as the latest Government code of practice for highways maintenance. 'Without this PDA-based inspection and defect collection system we would not have been able to implement elements of this code,' admits Andy Herridge, highways maintenance manager at the council.

'The integrated mobile and back-office solutions from Mayrise have eliminated paper-based defect records. The limited resources of our Highways Inspection team can now be applied to meeting our maintenance inspection duties rather than to time-consuming administrative tasks.'

The mobile element means the council can link field-based duties and operations to back-office systems. Routine inspection schedules generated by the Highways software are downloaded to the inspectors' PDAs. On completion of a street inspection, records together with any defects noted are uploaded from the mobile units to the central management system, which processes the information and issues works orders to operational staff.

The mobile data collection software is also used to record defects to utilities plant, street lighting and fencing located on the highway. The council's next step is to equip highways engineers with PDAs, to enable them to investigate ad hoc customer complaints and requests for service.

PANEL

Case study: Mobile management stems missed-meter problems

Anglian Water provides water and waste water services to over six million industrial, commercial and domestic customers in East Anglia and the East Midlands. The field employees responsible for meter readings measure on average 200 water meters per day, working on foot.

Employees used to upload each day's meter readings to the back-office system using a docking station at home. However, any meters that had been missed would not be highlighted until the end of the shift. The work then had to be added to the next day's schedule, eventually building up to significant delays.

'We needed a more efficient way to receive meter readings in real time from our colleagues in the field,' says Brian Lumb, data solutions manager. 'And we needed a better way to communicate with them if there were any changes to routes or schedules.' The company also needed to improve its response times to customer requesters for readings. 'One industry regulation is that a meter reading must be taken within a set time when someone moves house and leaves a property.'

The solution has been to merge Anglian Water's back-office system, MOSS, with Cognito's real-time mobile data solution. The application runs on Motorola MC70 ruggedised computers, which Lumb says are ideal for the operation. 'They can be bashed, dropped in water and exposed to heat and cold.'

Information from meter readings is now being automatically uploaded in real time. The back office can send messages to employees in the field, allowing additional meter readings to be scheduled if the rounds are finished early, providing more flexibility in managing the mobile teams and real-time data means the office is immediately notified of missed readings.

Employees no longer have to use docking stations at home. Lumb is also impressed with the live messaging service. 'It can tell you when someone has opened the message, and it will help us be more effective and get to more customers' meters more quickly.'

If there is no GPRS coverage in an area the device will automatically fall back to GSM. Where there is no coverage, the data is stored and automatically uploaded later.