How Field Service Technology Mitigates Hazardous Situations

While fleet and workforce management solutions can monitor day-to-day operations, these technologies are also playing a major role in mission-critical events such as damage assessment and cleanup.

When a public works truck breaks down in a blizzard during snow removal in a suburb outside of Boston, dispatchers know exactly where to find the vehicle. That’s because the public works department uses a fleet management system with telematics that tracks the progress of their fleet and crew in the field.

Telematics, GIS (geographic information systems) mapping, GPS and cellular communications have been playing an increasing role in guiding teams, tracking progress and assigning workers in the aftermath of blizzards, thunderstorms, floods, heat waves and events where safety is a concern. These technologies already are being used extensively in organizations with large fleets and field services organizations to run day-to-day operations. Now they are also playing a role in seasonal storm damage assessment and cleanup.

Various agencies and organizations have been turning to them to improve mission-critical response. Red Cross workers, for instance, use handheld devices to assess damage in the aftermath of natural disasters. While in the past Red Cross staff would rush to the scene with clipboards in hand to do their assessments, now they use rugged Nomad handhelds to upload information immediately accessible to analysts at Red Cross headquarters.

As organizations take advantage of telematics, GIS mapping or GPS systems – or a combination of them – the technology is becoming more sophisticated, offering new ways to be efficient and responsive. Tying these technologies together is workforce management, which is becoming popular at field services organizations with large vehicle fleets. And as it becomes so, organizations that respond to mission-critical events such as floods, power outages and snow storms are bound to start adopting it as well.

Workforce management leverages technologies such as fleet management and GPS data to deliver real-time information about worker and vehicle locations and the progress of their work. It provides dynamic scheduling tools to optimize in-day and scheduled work, and performance analytics that help make on-the-spot resource deployment decisions as well as prepare for future events.

Technology for the Unexpected

Dangerous weather events have become common around the globe. Sometimes the damage is limited to a few downed power lines, but in some cases there is widespread damage, with flooded basements, broken gas lines, impassable roads and interruptions in cable and phone service. While first responders get a lot of attention for rushing to emergencies, in the aftermath of flooding or a storm, there is critical activity by utility crews, cable companies, oil and gas delivery firms, and repair and maintenance teams to restore normalcy.

That includes reinstating power, repairing downed telephone lines or gas, heating and cable connections. Road-clearing crews and utility workers for instance, get dispatched as soon as the situation permits. Plumbers, electricians, construction workers and HVAC technicians are sent to the scene to reconnect services and rebuild damaged structures.

There is a lot of pressure on agencies and organizations that respond to these disasters. Restoring power and HVAC, for instance, is critical for medical care facilities, where lives may depend on how quickly repairs can be made. Field service crews have to fix downed power lines, broken gas lines and damaged water mains. Cleaning crews work to prevent contamination. Mobile repair crews work to restore cable and Internet connections, ATM operations and gas stations to enable communication and commerce.

Where it is used, workforce management solutions give dispatchers and managers full visibility into work in the field so they can better plan and track the work. Centralized consoles and dynamic GIS maps give dispatchers real-time visibility on crew locations. A dispatcher knows exactly when crews arrive at a job, how long they spend there, and when they leave. So when a crew finishes an assignment, the dispatcher can send the crew to the next task in a smarter, more efficient way. Now, rather than sending a crew across town for the next assignment, the dispatcher looks on the digital map to see where the nearest job is. Shorter distances between jobs mean less time traveling and more time restoring service.

The municipal utility in Anderson, IN, has adopted GPS-based fleet management technology. Before that, when ice storms, blizzards or thunderstorms pulled down power lines in Anderson, the utility department tracked its crews by making phone calls and writing their positions on a chalkboard.

“When there were storms, the board looked like a chess game. Now, we know exactly where each vehicle is and can schedule repairs by a truck’s proximity to the outage,” says Jason Tuck, GIS consultant and former GIS Manager for Anderson Municipal Power & Light Division. “We can see our trucks real-time on a map and make faster and more confident decisions because we know their locations are more accurate.”

Like Anderson Power & Light, any organization that gets involved in cleanup response, including pest control, building maintenance, telephone and cable, plumbing, heating and electrical contractors, water supply, home health care, construction and various state and federal agencies, can improve its response by leveraging field services technology.

Dynamic Response

Workforce management solutions deliver data that can be used in real time for on-the-spot decisions and for later review. In real-time situations, managers receive information on how much progress field teams have made, which assignments need coverage, and which workers are available for upcoming tasks. Dynamic scheduling tools, like those found in next-generation workforce management solutions, deliver visibility into work plans while intelligent assignment tools match skills to tasks.

Next-generation workforce management solutions collect data on the experience and preferences of workers. If a field worker is more familiar than others with a certain area of town, it makes sense to send that worker to assignments there because the worker already knows back roads, shortcuts and the general lay of the land. In addition, next-generation workforce management solutions feature tools that “learn” workers’ preferences on geography and types of tasks, which helps fine-tune the assignment of workers to needed tasks. It also helps to reduce overtime costs, travel time and missed assignments.

As the workday progress, managers and dispatchers receive a constant stream of information on GPS location coordinates and the amount of time spent on each assignment. If certain roads are impassable, dispatchers can plan alternative routes to avoid delays. Using fleet management, dispatchers can route drivers around roads shuttered by fallen trees, flooding or much slides.

This helps optimize routing and labor optimization, while improving crew safety. Public works departments, for instance, can immediately respond to stranded crews by tracking their progress constantly. Now if there’s a snowstorm and a truck breaks down, they know exactly where to find it and the driver.

Future Planning

Beyond field situations, workforce management delivers analytics about the performance and responsiveness of each worker and team. Organizations compile the data into reports for review to spot trends and the need for improvements. For instance, if crews took too long to arrive, managers can better plan standby crews for future situations.

Use of analytical data helps improve productivity, making it possible to complete more jobs per day, and helps control costs. For field services organizations, squeezing more jobs into one day in the aftermath of a disaster accelerates the resumption of operations, which helps to minimize lost revenue and bring employees back to work more quickly. It also creates goodwill among customers, who often get frustrated when service restoration takes too long, especially after a storm or strong winds.

“We can give customers a window and the driver will call half an hour before getting there so the customer is always updated on their service status,” says Jeff Bowlby, operations supervisor for New Jersey American Water, which provides water and wastewater service in six counties.

Workforce management increases accountability as well, by collecting accurate, reliable information on field operations and associated costs. Managers are better equipped to make the right decisions regarding resource deployment during emergencies and on a daily basis. Beyond that, organizations that base decisions on accurate, meaningful information that reveals historical patterns, trends and metrics can respond more effectively to not only day-to-day tasks but to the next storm, flood, heat wave or blizzard.

For more information on Trimble Field Service Management solutions, visit www.trimble.com/fsm.

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