CLEVEST Mobile Workforce Management

  

Automate virtually any utility field work activity

Response times to outages and other field work requests are improved, while productivity, safety, accuracy and customer service are increased

CLEVEST Mobile Workforce Management was specifically built around the needs of utility operations to address the rapidly transforming electric, gas and water industries. It is a complete solution providing actionable information that leads to informed decision-making, improving your field and office operations.

Our configurable mobile workforce management software is fully GIS integrated, providing real-time visibility into your asset infrastructure and full range of field work activities from performing meter service work to restoring outages to managing a mass deployment of smart meters. All field workflow information and tools are integrated onto a single mobile computer, eliminating the need for multiple devices. By linking field workers with mobile supervisors and the dispatch center in real-time, both operational decisions and efficiency are improved.

Solution components 

Manage mobile workforce from AVL map

Use the mobile workforce management solution integrated with the CLEVEST GPS-enabled AVL solution for a single, powerful, location-based view of crews in the field and the work they are performing. Dispatchers and supervisors can use the AVL map to view orders that are assigned to crews, monitor the real-time progress on orders throughout the day, assign, reassign or cancel orders when needed, and redirect field resources as required. If the AVL solution supports optional GIS overlays, dispatchers can manage field operations against a comprehensive, dynamic view of the utility's asset infrastructure in relation to the location of its vehicles.

Benefits

  • Manage field operations from the AVL map
  • Monitor the physical location of crews and the progress of work with real-time indicators on the AVL map
  • Direct the activities of crews more productively
  • Respond to alerts, exception conditions and emergencies faster

Improve performance of field operations

Close the gap between the office and the field with dispatching and mobile applications that use real-time wireless communications to manage day-to-day field operations. Eliminate the costs and inefficiencies of voice communication and error-prone, labor-intensive, paper-based data collection (e.g., on orders, customers, assets) in the field and data entry back in the office. Dispatchers and supervisors can send over 100 different types of order assignments wirelessly to crews, easily monitor the progress of work with real-time status updates and make informed decisions in response to alerts, exception conditions and emergencies. Crews create orders in the field as needed and send status updates and order completion information in real-time throughout the day as they process work.

Benefits

  • Reduce the overhead and administrative costs associated with error-prone paper-based dispatching and manual data entry
  • Enhance operating efficiencies in the field and office with real-time communication for more informed decision-making
  • Enhance customer service by improving productivity and shortening response times, especially to outages
  • Increase first-time-fix rates and minimize lost revenue
  • Preserve audit trails on all activities in the field for regulatory compliance and customer inquiries
  • Reduce the radio traffic between the field and the office

Automatically assign work optimally

Create schedules that optimize the availability of crews with both the time and skills required to complete specific types of orders, and with the travel routes between jobs. Automatically send schedules to crews with mobile devices so they can start the day from home instead of driving into the office for paper-based orders. Schedule new work or modify assignments in real-time as needed, rebalance the workload during the day to compensate for orders ahead of and behind schedule, set business rules to define how work is scheduled for different individuals, groups or regions, to schedule critical work on a priority basis, and to handle how work is assigned in unusual circumstances (e.g., storms, overtime, outages, year end).

Benefits

  • Dramatically decrease the time spent manually compiling paper-based schedules for the mobile workforce
  • Optimize how mobile workforce is deployed to complete more work per day and enhance customer satisfaction
  • Reduce expensive overtime and non-productive idle times
  • Improve responsiveness to new conditions by efficiently rescheduling and rebalancing work

Spend less time driving and complete more work

Complete more work and decrease fuel costs by optimizing routing throughout the day to reduce the amount of non-productive travel time across the entire mobile workforce. A component of the scheduling engine, and used by dispatchers and crews on-the-fly as needed, street-level routing considers the road network (e.g., speed limits, one-way streets, buildings, geographic obstacles, construction) in calculating travels times and mapping directions between orders. This information is used to optimally resource work and to provide accurate and reliable appointments to customers.

Benefits

  • Efficiently coordinate work, workers and travel time, both automatically and on demand
  • Complete more work per technician per day and improve the productivity and responsiveness of field operations
  • Decrease overall mileage to lower fuel costs and reduce wear and tear on vehicles
  • Reduce the customer service-related and operational costs of missed appointments

Analyze field operations

Gain insight into workforce operations with easy-to-use, powerful reporting capabilities. Analyze past performance and forecast future scenarios based on current and historical time-stamped information. Generate standard and custom reports to evaluate work progress (track real-time status updates), work quality (track callbacks, return trips, service histories), service levels (monitor response times, SLA commitments, legislated/mandated performance levels), capacity (compare known work to scheduled resources), performance (e.g., by worker, crew, team, area, district) and inventory (requires versus available) as well as to plan and model the impact of operational change.

Benefits

  • Make information accessible and visible for better decision-making
  • Support the business with key insights into how the mobile workforce is performing
  • Generate reports quickly without leaving the mobile workforce management system
  • Optimize the performance of crews and improve the impact they have on operational efficiency and the customer experience
  • Respond effectively to customer inquiries with accurate, timely data on field activities

Adapt applications for information exchange

Leverage the information sharing opportunity created by interoperable enterprise systems. Easily and cost-effectively create and modify interfaces that define the movement of data between the mobile workforce management solution and the utility's CIS, GIS and outage management system. Avoid the time and cost of reprogramming and recompiling legacy apps that are not architected to readily interface to new systems and support new business processes.

Benefits

  • Easily adapt the mobile workforce management solution to interact with different software systems as required
  • Share current and accurate data across multiple software systems to optimize business processes
  • Leverage already-certified interfaces with major CIS and billing systems such as SAP
  • Validate configuration as you go and reduce the lengthy QA cycles associated with programming and compiling
  • Avoid expensive custom programming to retrofit legacy apps

Interoperable with GIS and OMS

Clevest's AVL solution is MultiSpeak-certified to interoperate with GIS and OMS solutions that also adopt MultiSpeak data model and service definitions. MultiSpeak is a leading standard in the electric cooperative utility industry for enterprise application interoperability. For utilities with integration initiatives, using applications written to the MultiSpeak Specification offers an independent measure of assurance that software investments will function as expected.

Benefits

  • Standard specific to the electric cooperative utility industry
  • Meets critical requirement for interoperability of enterprise software
  • Tested in multiple existing installations
  • Reduces need for extensive and expensive customization

  

Automatic vehicle location | Smart grid deployment & support | Meter reading | Asset investment planning