Case Study - Mobile Working

The Challenge | The Solution | The Benefits

GeoField helps get Bristol Water On the Move - Increasing Efficiency, Cutting Costs and Reducing Carbon.

“From week one the majority of field staff were working effectively from home and functioning in the field with access to GIS, with a dramatic reduction in paperwork and utilising new technology that we could have only dreamt of a few years ago.”

Gary Freake, Director of Network.

The Challenge

When Bristol Water resolved to set a new standard for the efficiency and effectiveness of its field service operations and the quality of its customer response and service levels, everyone knew that this meant changing the way they worked.

At the heart of this ambitious project was a significant investment in a new mobile workforce management solution. The new solution encompassed resource planning, work scheduling, business process management, GPS and mobile data communication to laptops and tablet PCs.

By investing in the latest field force automation technology Bristol Water was able to consolidate planned and unplanned work through integration with existing ERP, CRM GIS systems. Over 30 current manual processes and 80 paper forms could be streamlined by the new system, some of which were highly complex and dependent on multiple resources and workflows.

Within a closely regulated industry such as water supply, the new system had to match up to stringent compliance legislation. Common tasks include meter installation and the inspection, maintenance and repair of Bristol Water’s 6,500 km water pipe network. Bristol Water required a proven technology with the flexibility to address the needs of a wide range of work types.

After a rigorous selection process Bristol Water selected GeoField from Sigma Seven to be the mobile GIS tool in the hands of their field inspectors and engineers.

GeoField gives Bristol Water field engineers an unbeatable level of support to their day-to-day activities, driving down response times and providing customers with improved levels of service.

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The Sigma Seven Solution

Running on rugged industry standard Tablet PCs and fully integrated with Bristol Water’s own Smallworld Enterprise GIS and SAP work management system, the GeoField application places a complete set of mapping, operational and infrastructure data directly into the hands of its field crews. This means staff have instant access to everything they need wherever they are - even if called to an emergency or when a job changes. GeoField also directly integrates with Bristol Water’s new field force automation system to extract task and scheduling information for the field engineers.

At the heart of the solution is GeoField’s core application, the Network Map Viewer. This enables Bristol Water’s fieldworkers to effectively use the same mapping and asset data as is available in the office without needing a live network connection. The mobile system was configured to have the same look and feel as their office system to make it easy to use and minimise the need for additional training.

Field staff access all the company’s maps quickly and easily at their work location through a user interface specially designed for mobile workers. Maps are directly linked to work orders sent from the central office system and the powerful GeoField Redline features extend capabilities into rich map mark-up, sketch and photograph capture. This ensures that Bristol Water gets the maximum benefit from its investment in mobile working.

“GeoField: GIS at your fingertips, faster than GIS in the office. Enough said.”

- Bristol Water Engineer

Work orders, comments, notes and amendments can easily be added while on location and the data is synchronised with office data when needed. Redline mark-ups can be sent back to base over the public GPRS network so important new information is rapidly made available to all. New assignments are also sent wirelessly to engineers so that workers can be deployed rapidly to new jobs without wasting time and fuel returning to the office.

Because the GeoField interface is intuitive and familiar, staff are not required to be GIS or IT experts. Sigma Seven were able to deliver training to all staff through a one day “train-the-trainer” course at Bristol Water offices, minimising service disruption by keeping engineers out of the classroom and on the road.

The entire project was completed in 14 weeks. On time and on budget.

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The Benefits

GeoField has helped make the whole Bristol Water mobile working project a success.

The system has delivered proven benefits to Bristol Water in terms of significantly improved productivity, reduced operational costs, better data quality and reduced environmental impact through more efficient task planning.

Although only it its first year, Bristol Water estimate they have already saved 1.5 million sheets of paper, achieving one of the project’s key aims. That is 7.5 tonnes of paper which, as well as the savings on printing costs, reduces the engineering team’s carbon footprint by around 30 tonnes of CO2 every year. More carbon savings are likely as the team analyses its journey times and mileage.

The Tablet PCs also allow mobile staff access to their email and other corporate systems and have proved very reliable and popular with users.

“Having GIS available whenever I need it is an enormous help. The system looks and feels just like the one in the office. If a job changes or we go to a new site in the past we would not have had the drawings we needed but now I have access to everything.”

- Jonathan Gilson, Leakage Inspector

If you're interested in finding out more, please contact us.

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