With the number of large water improvement programmes in the region growing rapidly, South West Water needed to reduce unproductive time for its field engineers to manage the increased workloads. The organisation chose to equip them with handheld, mobile devices to access and capture data from the field. It chose Microsoft® Partner TBS to deploy its TaskMaster mobility solution on Microsoft Windows Mobile devices.

The solution integrates with the companyís work management solution through an additional TaskMaster module SynchroWeb, which allocates work directly to users in the field. Details are sent and received automatically in real time, ensuring that the central office is constantly updated on progress and activity. The solution helps to dramatically reduce unproductive time through less travel and a reduction in paperwork administration.

Situation

South West Water provides water and sewerage services to Cornwall, Devon, and areas of Dorset and Somerset in the United Kingdom. It serves a population of around 1.6 million and employs 1,400 people. Over the past 16 years, the company has delivered one of the largest capital investment improvement programmes per capita of all the water companies. It has recently completed its £1 billion (U.S. $1.83 billion) Clean Sweep bathing water improvement programme, the biggest of its kind in Europe.

South West Water Engineering Services delivers a broad range of asset facilities-management services, with more than 100 skilled craft workers. The engineering maintenance team maintains more than 80,000 items of equipment.

Large environmental initiatives, such as Clean Sweep, as well as new engineering developments have contributed to the increasing number of sites that South West Waterís craft workers have to attend for maintenance and repairs each day. These projects prompted the organisation to consider new ways to ensure its engineering and maintenance department could handle the huge increase in workload.

Prior to the new system going live, Engineering Maintenanceís craft workers used a paper-based system for their work instructions and feedback. The organisationís work management system, Mincom Information Management System (MIMS) Open Enterprise, produced printed paper forms and task lists for craft workers to collect from their depots. Team leaders sorted these and assigned them to their staff, placing the forms in pigeon holes ready to be collected.

The paper forms had job details printed on one side, and a pre-printed feedback form on the other. Once filled in, the forms were returned to the depot where clerks manually entered the information into the system, a task that was very time-consuming.

Under pressure to support increasing numbers of assets with the same resources, South West Water had to consider ways of reducing unproductive time across the organisation.

Alister Button, Analyst Programmer, South West Water, says: "In 2002/2003, our craft workers carried out 56,000 separate jobs. It was estimated that this would increase to 70,000 within a year. We needed to be smarter about the way we were working."

To free up more employee time, South West Water was keen to reduce journey time. As craft workers often had to drop into their local depot every morning, for example to pick up their work for the day, this area was identified as possible opportunity for improvement.

Solution

In 2002, the Engineering Maintenance department worked with the IT team to examine mobile solutions. The organisation investigated many mobile devices, such as Palm devices, smart phones, laptops, and notebooks before deciding that MicrosoftÆ Windows MobileÆ based Pocket PCs were most suited to their requirements.

South West Water attended the Service Management Europe conference where it met Microsoft Partner and systems integrator TBS. It selected TBS out of six potential solution providers to implement a mobile system built around its TaskMaster mobility solution and SynchroWeb call allocation and despatch module. "TBS are very professional, well organised, and technically competent. The team came up with solutions to all our needs," says Button.

TaskMaster, running on the Windows Mobile based Pocket PCs, was rolled out to 125 craft workers on HP iPAQ 1940 devices. Brian Barnes, Sales Director at TBS, says: "TaskMaster is easily tailored to meet engineersí specific requirements without a lot of bespoke configuration."

SynchroWeb is a Web-based application, used by team leaders to receive, review, and dispatch jobs. "Rather than being sent to printers, faults or job requests are now forwarded to SynchroWeb," says Barnes. "A team leader reviews all the job details such as deadline date and site information on their screen and assigns it to a craft workerís Pocket PC."

An enterprise application integration tool provides the interface between the MIMS back-end system and SynchroWeb. "We've used SeeBeyond's e*Gate Integrator tool to manipulate the information output by SynchroWeb in XML files and feed it into our back-end system in a logical way, based on business rules," says Button.

In the field, a craft worker connects their Pocket PC via a wireless Bluetooth connection to their mobile phone which in turn uses the Vodafone GPRS wireless network to connect to SynchroWeb. TaskMaster then updates the Pocket PC with any new jobs and automatically synchronises data on the device with the central office system. The craft worker can view job details and capture feedback, job status and relevant asset information using a combination of data-entry methods such as drop-down menus and pick-lists. "This data is automatically sent to SynchroWeb and our work management system where it is immediately available to team leaders," says Button.

Benefits

Reducing Unproductive Time

With the mobile solution in place, South West Water has successfully cut down on unproductive time by reducing the need to travel and process excess paperwork. As a result, the company has maintained the same number of craft workers and depot staff, who now have the time to work on numerous additional projects. "Our craft workers can use this extra time to focus on maintaining assets and equipment," says Button.

Depot clerks who spent much of their time re-keying the hand-written data into the work management system, now have time for more value-added tasks. "Work Order feedback was taking up around 50 percent of their time. They can now dedicate that time to more challenging and rewarding tasks such as managing the depot stores and compiling performance reports," says Button.

Technology to Meet Business Needs

TaskMaster Smart Client technology provides online/offline functionality, which means that the system doesnít rely on a constantly-available phone network. TaskMaster Smart Client stores the data captured so that the users can connect to and update the work management system when the network is available.

For IT teams, the solution requires surprisingly little effort to manage and maintain. The department can send out pick-list updates to devices without them having to be returned to the depots. "If we need to make changes to the devices we can update them when we send out the data," says Barnes. "TaskMaster Smart Client interprets how the display should look on the device."

Easy User Adoption

Despite the fact that many craft workers had little or no IT experience, they found the solution very easy to use. The simplicity of TaskMaster, combined with user-friendly Microsoft Windows® operating system based technology, helped TBS to train two expert users from each depot in a day, who were then able to return to their depots and train their colleagues.

"Our pilot was intended for three weeks but at the end we had trouble persuading the craft workers to let us take the units away temporarily so that we could prepare for go-live" says Button. '"We were very pleased with the feedback, but not surprisedóthe solution makes the administration associated with their jobs so much easier."

Rapidly Reducing Costs

A significant reduction in travel time from depot to site is expected to reduce fuel costs. The solution also contributes to more accurate invoicing, saving potential losses through errors or unclear information.

"If the craft workers are part way through a job by the end of the day, they can suspend that job on the device. All of the information captured up to that point is returned to the depot staff, who can calculate accurate costs on a daily basis," says Barnes.

Combined savings and increased efficiencies through improved job reporting, reduced fuel costs, and improved productivity mean that South West Water has seen return on investment within a year. "In addition, team leaders get an up-to-date, accurate view of information that is necessary for more informed business decisions and better resource management," says Button.

Making Services Stronger

Using the solution, new activities can be undertaken by the craft workers that were previously not possible, such as asset management. While on site, they can now look for discrepancies in asset details that are held in the system and make any necessary amendments to the database at the depot.

"Before, our asset team didnít want the craft workers to make amendments to the internal asset register because they were concerned that handwritten notes would impact on data accuracy," says Button. "But now that our craft workers can input that information electronically on site, they can review and validate the details that we hold against a piece of equipment and make accurate amendments. Over time we expect a significant improvement in data quality."

They can also capture details of the condition of assets, a process known as condition monitoring, by comparing the state of the equipment against the date it was last checked. Button says: "Over time, we will be able to chart the pieces of equipment that are degrading and effectively organise preventative maintenance before a problem arises."

Future Plans

The solution was implemented by South West Water in May 2004. In August 2004 a Post Project Appraisal was undertaken which concluded that the solution in place did indeed provide craft workers the ability to work from home, turning unnecessary travel time into more productive time. From the outset, South West Water wanted to implement a Mobility Solution that was expandable and with TaskMaster / SynchroWeb they have it. Further rollout phases to other areas of the company are currently underway with separate projects to implement Device Management, Mobile Email & PIM and Work Scheduling alongside TaskMaster and SynchroWeb also planned.