| GISdevelopment.net ---> GITA 1999 ---> Exploiting Field and Mobile Technologies |
Justifying Mobility: The New Customer Ethos
James Horstman, Paul Wilson
Southern California Edison MapFrame Corporation
P.O BOX800 100 N. Central Expy., Ste. 1008
Rosemead,CA91770 Dallas, TX 75201
James Horstman, Paul Wilson
Southern California Edison MapFrame Corporation
P.O BOX800 100 N. Central Expy., Ste. 1008
Rosemead,CA91770 Dallas, TX 75201
Introduction
The emergence of powerful mobile computers in the last several years has resulted in unprecedented opportunity for utilities and other organizations to automate field operations. Increasingly, utilities are implementing mobile systems that streamline and automate field activities ranging from meter reading to pole inspection to mobile distribution design.
A sign of the growing importance of mobile applications resides in the fact that this technology is viewed increasingly as an integral part of key business processes rather than as a way to automate isolated outdoor tasks. For many companies, implementing mobile technologies goes hand in hand with re-engineering efforts aimed at increasing an organization’s overall efficiency and effectiveness.
This drive to become more efficient and boost productivity has, of course, been a key factor in many of the changes occurring in the utility industry in the last decade. It has also been a key factor in justifying mobile computing projects. Where, besides the field is there potential for such large pay-off in terms of productivity gain?
Certainly, the drive to increase productivity will continue to be a major justification in any field computing project. But there is another equally important factor at work today that we refer to as the new “customer ethos”. By this we mean the following: a guiding belief in customer satisfaction that pervades a utility’s organization and decision-making process.
This paper describes that phenomenon and relates the new customer ethos to mobile computing -- both in a conceptual sense and in practical examples drawn from a case study at Southern California Edison Company. This case study is based on a mobile distribution design application that has been fully implemented and allows distribution planners to create facility designs at the job site based on the company’s assemblies database.
The significance of this case study is that it demonstrates a customer service ethos in the form of a highly innovative field application. Faced with deregulation and profound changes in the industry, Southern California Edison has chosen to implement new projects which meet the twin goals of improving productivity and increasing customer satisfaction. Mobile Design is one such project.
Improving the Business Process
Until recently, the driving force behind the implementation of mobile technology was always the need for internal business process improvement.
Proponents of mobile computing have emphasized the potential for large productivity gains that can result from automating field activities -- activities that have resisted automation in the past. And certainly this perception is proving to be the reality. When applications are well-designed and geared to the field (as opposed to moving office systems into mobile settings), field computing does, indeed, have the ability to make mobile workers more productive and improve the flow of processes between the office and the field.
Let’s look, for a moment, at the Southern California Edison Mobile Design case study referred to above and see how mobile computing has streamlined the design process, cutting redundancy and error, and increasing productivity.
Southern California Edison is the primary provider of electric service for most of southern California. Their mobile design application was developed to automate the part of distribution planning that has typically taken place in the field. The application is referred to at Edison as the Planner Office because it gives SCE’S distribution planners a way to take information and computer capability out of the office into the field.
Here’s how the application is changing the design process at Edison. The majority of the utility’s design jobs are small and medium-sized projects requiring planners to travel to the job site. Under the old system, planners had to take notes, confirm data from paper maps, record existing facilities, and sketch out the new facility. Then, after returning to the office, the planner would work from these notes to complete the design process. This consisted of entering assembly data into a work management system and then redrawing the sketch.
The new system is based on capturing data at the source and creating an all-digital work order cycle from job inception to completion. Using their high-performance pen computers, planners create a drawing on the spot by selecting assemblies (poles, conductor, transformers, etc.) from a standardized list and tapping the screen to place a symbol on a downloaded AutoCAD map or field sketch.
As a planner is placing poles or showing where a line should be extended, for example, the assembly database automatically calculates the material list and cost estimates. The system also lets planners do engineering calculations (voltage drop, flicker, guying rules, etc.) to verify the design. And it includes budget items/PUC rules, task qualifiers and access to reference materials at the project site.
Productivity gains resulting from this application have occurred for several reasons, including the fact that the Planner Office has eliminated certain tasks and consolidated others. Planners no longer have to do things twice, first at the job site and then, again, in the office. For example, after the sketch is created at the job site, it is uploaded into Edison’s work management system, eliminating the need tore-create the sketch in the office. There is no longer a need to look up assembly codes or create a material list. And the Planner Office has also eliminated less demanding but tedious and time-consuming tasks like labeling sketches.
In addition to eliminating redundancy and speeding up the design process, the new system also reduces errors. By basing designs on a database of compatible units or assemblies, designs can be checked for voltage drop, flicker, and other factors. The system also enforces corporate design standards by ensuring that guidelines are followed in the design process.
In terms of the business process, Edison’s Planner Office illustrates the dramatic gains that can be achieved by taking a process that has been relatively unchanged for many years and applying technology to it. The type of productivity gain afforded by the Planner Office will continue to be a driving force in the adoption of mobile technology throughout the utility industry -- especially in the face of increasing competition. But this issue of competition and impeding deregulation also introduces a new consideration: the customer.
Increasing Customer Responsiveness
A recent study (Customer Development Corporation, November 1998) examining consumer attitudes towards the looming deregulation of the energy industry found that effective communication with existing and prospective customers is the key success factor for companies who hope to compete.
This should come as no surprise. Since the 1970’s, U.S. companies have been moving toward a markedly higher level of customer service, recognizing that good communication and reliable service is essential for success in a competitive marketplace. This is especially true for companies selling commodity type products, who need to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
A host of business books, public television shows, and magazine articles have chronicled the development of this new customer service ethos in American industry. Companies like Federal Express, Sears, and Toyota have been touted as business models for succeeding in highly competitive markets by providing outstanding customer service.
The best of these new “service” companies have made technology a cornerstone of their customer service. With computers, you “remember”. Instantaneously, you have a history of vital customer information including location, previous requests, back orders, and promised delivery dates.
This image of “instant information” reinforces the feeling on the part of customers that they are talking with someone who “knows” them and that they can ask questions and get answers on the spot.
In addition to improving communication, technology is also being utilized in service industries to insure convenience. Federal Express makes it easy to track orders and get delivery service on short notice. And, for the most part, they come to you -- they adapt to your needs and schedule.
Is there a lesson here for the utility industry? Most analysts think so. Clearly, the industry is moving into a more competitive arena. How soon deregulation will happen is still unclear, though it is already proceeding in states like California. Even though timing is uncertain, the perception that competition is coming is driving most utilities to reassess their relationship with their customers and to actively seek ways to improve customer service.
Adding new services, responding more quickly to customer questions, solving problems in shorter periods of time: these actions are all part of the new customer service ethos. And they all involve technology. Responding more quickly to power outages involves technology. So does “knowing” the customer and providing the right answers in a manner that’s convenient for the customer.
This new customer ethos is less that of the traditional utility than that of well-known service providers in other industries. When planning for new distribution service, managers in utilities now see themselves competing with companies like Sears in the minds of the consumer. And the commitment to technology is part of that image. For example, companies such as UPS and FedEx have made mobile computers a highly visible part of their service. These computers reinforce the feeling that customers are dealing with a company that has answers and can quickly move to solve problems. It is this level of application that many utility companies are trying to emulate today. In the utility industry, the field offers a unique opportunity for companies to excel in customer service by moving mobile computers directly to the customer or to the source of the problem. For utilities embracing the new customer ethos, mobile computers are a way to relate more directly and to provide better service.
Let’s look again at Southern California Edison’s Planner Office. As the application was being developed and refined, the business environment in which Edison operates began to change dramatically. California took major steps toward deregulation, with both commercial and residential users ultimately gaining the right to choose electricity providers. These changes have affected Southern California Edison in many ways, but one of the immediate outcomes has been new expectations for Edison employees who come into regular contact with current and prospective customers.
Convenience, timely answers, access to information: all these factors are seen as highly important in raising the utility’s level of customer service. The new mobile design system has fared well in the light of these criteria. Because planners often meet with customers at the job site, the Planner OffIce is a prime example of how new technology can be used to better serve customers.
To begin with, there is the issue of convenience. With the new system, planners can produce needed information on the spot with customers having to make only one trip to the job site. In the past, there was often a need for follow-up phone calls or additional visits.
The ability to answer detailed questions or quickly produce alternative designs is also highly impressive and pleasing to customers. For example, questions such as “how much would it cost to put this under ground” can now be answered on the spot with an estimate.
Using their pen computers, planners can also quickly revise designs to reflect various scenarios raised by a customer. This is particularly helpful for customers like contractors, who deal regularly with the utility on medium-sized projects. The Planner Office has made their work faster and easier.
At Edison then, a new image is also a new reality. Planners carrying pen computers are equipped to provide the very things the customer wants most: information, flexibility, and convenience.
Conclusions
As mobile computing technology matures, it will be increasingly viewed by utilities as an important tool for use in a competitive business environment. Mobile applications such as outage management, pole inspection, and mobile design are already proving that mobile computing can have a dramatic impact in terms of productivity gain. Mobile computing, we believe, will also emerge as a key technology in improving and maintaining customer relations. For utilities dedicated to providing highly efficient and effective customer service, mobile computing will provide the means to respond more quickly to certain types of problems and to provide better information at the job site.
The emergence of powerful mobile computers in the last several years has resulted in unprecedented opportunity for utilities and other organizations to automate field operations. Increasingly, utilities are implementing mobile systems that streamline and automate field activities ranging from meter reading to pole inspection to mobile distribution design.
A sign of the growing importance of mobile applications resides in the fact that this technology is viewed increasingly as an integral part of key business processes rather than as a way to automate isolated outdoor tasks. For many companies, implementing mobile technologies goes hand in hand with re-engineering efforts aimed at increasing an organization’s overall efficiency and effectiveness.
This drive to become more efficient and boost productivity has, of course, been a key factor in many of the changes occurring in the utility industry in the last decade. It has also been a key factor in justifying mobile computing projects. Where, besides the field is there potential for such large pay-off in terms of productivity gain?
Certainly, the drive to increase productivity will continue to be a major justification in any field computing project. But there is another equally important factor at work today that we refer to as the new “customer ethos”. By this we mean the following: a guiding belief in customer satisfaction that pervades a utility’s organization and decision-making process.
This paper describes that phenomenon and relates the new customer ethos to mobile computing -- both in a conceptual sense and in practical examples drawn from a case study at Southern California Edison Company. This case study is based on a mobile distribution design application that has been fully implemented and allows distribution planners to create facility designs at the job site based on the company’s assemblies database.
The significance of this case study is that it demonstrates a customer service ethos in the form of a highly innovative field application. Faced with deregulation and profound changes in the industry, Southern California Edison has chosen to implement new projects which meet the twin goals of improving productivity and increasing customer satisfaction. Mobile Design is one such project.
Improving the Business Process
Until recently, the driving force behind the implementation of mobile technology was always the need for internal business process improvement.
Proponents of mobile computing have emphasized the potential for large productivity gains that can result from automating field activities -- activities that have resisted automation in the past. And certainly this perception is proving to be the reality. When applications are well-designed and geared to the field (as opposed to moving office systems into mobile settings), field computing does, indeed, have the ability to make mobile workers more productive and improve the flow of processes between the office and the field.
Let’s look, for a moment, at the Southern California Edison Mobile Design case study referred to above and see how mobile computing has streamlined the design process, cutting redundancy and error, and increasing productivity.
Southern California Edison is the primary provider of electric service for most of southern California. Their mobile design application was developed to automate the part of distribution planning that has typically taken place in the field. The application is referred to at Edison as the Planner Office because it gives SCE’S distribution planners a way to take information and computer capability out of the office into the field.
Here’s how the application is changing the design process at Edison. The majority of the utility’s design jobs are small and medium-sized projects requiring planners to travel to the job site. Under the old system, planners had to take notes, confirm data from paper maps, record existing facilities, and sketch out the new facility. Then, after returning to the office, the planner would work from these notes to complete the design process. This consisted of entering assembly data into a work management system and then redrawing the sketch.
The new system is based on capturing data at the source and creating an all-digital work order cycle from job inception to completion. Using their high-performance pen computers, planners create a drawing on the spot by selecting assemblies (poles, conductor, transformers, etc.) from a standardized list and tapping the screen to place a symbol on a downloaded AutoCAD map or field sketch.
As a planner is placing poles or showing where a line should be extended, for example, the assembly database automatically calculates the material list and cost estimates. The system also lets planners do engineering calculations (voltage drop, flicker, guying rules, etc.) to verify the design. And it includes budget items/PUC rules, task qualifiers and access to reference materials at the project site.
Productivity gains resulting from this application have occurred for several reasons, including the fact that the Planner Office has eliminated certain tasks and consolidated others. Planners no longer have to do things twice, first at the job site and then, again, in the office. For example, after the sketch is created at the job site, it is uploaded into Edison’s work management system, eliminating the need tore-create the sketch in the office. There is no longer a need to look up assembly codes or create a material list. And the Planner Office has also eliminated less demanding but tedious and time-consuming tasks like labeling sketches.
In addition to eliminating redundancy and speeding up the design process, the new system also reduces errors. By basing designs on a database of compatible units or assemblies, designs can be checked for voltage drop, flicker, and other factors. The system also enforces corporate design standards by ensuring that guidelines are followed in the design process.
In terms of the business process, Edison’s Planner Office illustrates the dramatic gains that can be achieved by taking a process that has been relatively unchanged for many years and applying technology to it. The type of productivity gain afforded by the Planner Office will continue to be a driving force in the adoption of mobile technology throughout the utility industry -- especially in the face of increasing competition. But this issue of competition and impeding deregulation also introduces a new consideration: the customer.
Increasing Customer Responsiveness
A recent study (Customer Development Corporation, November 1998) examining consumer attitudes towards the looming deregulation of the energy industry found that effective communication with existing and prospective customers is the key success factor for companies who hope to compete.
This should come as no surprise. Since the 1970’s, U.S. companies have been moving toward a markedly higher level of customer service, recognizing that good communication and reliable service is essential for success in a competitive marketplace. This is especially true for companies selling commodity type products, who need to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
A host of business books, public television shows, and magazine articles have chronicled the development of this new customer service ethos in American industry. Companies like Federal Express, Sears, and Toyota have been touted as business models for succeeding in highly competitive markets by providing outstanding customer service.
The best of these new “service” companies have made technology a cornerstone of their customer service. With computers, you “remember”. Instantaneously, you have a history of vital customer information including location, previous requests, back orders, and promised delivery dates.
This image of “instant information” reinforces the feeling on the part of customers that they are talking with someone who “knows” them and that they can ask questions and get answers on the spot.
In addition to improving communication, technology is also being utilized in service industries to insure convenience. Federal Express makes it easy to track orders and get delivery service on short notice. And, for the most part, they come to you -- they adapt to your needs and schedule.
Is there a lesson here for the utility industry? Most analysts think so. Clearly, the industry is moving into a more competitive arena. How soon deregulation will happen is still unclear, though it is already proceeding in states like California. Even though timing is uncertain, the perception that competition is coming is driving most utilities to reassess their relationship with their customers and to actively seek ways to improve customer service.
Adding new services, responding more quickly to customer questions, solving problems in shorter periods of time: these actions are all part of the new customer service ethos. And they all involve technology. Responding more quickly to power outages involves technology. So does “knowing” the customer and providing the right answers in a manner that’s convenient for the customer.
This new customer ethos is less that of the traditional utility than that of well-known service providers in other industries. When planning for new distribution service, managers in utilities now see themselves competing with companies like Sears in the minds of the consumer. And the commitment to technology is part of that image. For example, companies such as UPS and FedEx have made mobile computers a highly visible part of their service. These computers reinforce the feeling that customers are dealing with a company that has answers and can quickly move to solve problems. It is this level of application that many utility companies are trying to emulate today. In the utility industry, the field offers a unique opportunity for companies to excel in customer service by moving mobile computers directly to the customer or to the source of the problem. For utilities embracing the new customer ethos, mobile computers are a way to relate more directly and to provide better service.
Let’s look again at Southern California Edison’s Planner Office. As the application was being developed and refined, the business environment in which Edison operates began to change dramatically. California took major steps toward deregulation, with both commercial and residential users ultimately gaining the right to choose electricity providers. These changes have affected Southern California Edison in many ways, but one of the immediate outcomes has been new expectations for Edison employees who come into regular contact with current and prospective customers.
Convenience, timely answers, access to information: all these factors are seen as highly important in raising the utility’s level of customer service. The new mobile design system has fared well in the light of these criteria. Because planners often meet with customers at the job site, the Planner OffIce is a prime example of how new technology can be used to better serve customers.
To begin with, there is the issue of convenience. With the new system, planners can produce needed information on the spot with customers having to make only one trip to the job site. In the past, there was often a need for follow-up phone calls or additional visits.
The ability to answer detailed questions or quickly produce alternative designs is also highly impressive and pleasing to customers. For example, questions such as “how much would it cost to put this under ground” can now be answered on the spot with an estimate.
Using their pen computers, planners can also quickly revise designs to reflect various scenarios raised by a customer. This is particularly helpful for customers like contractors, who deal regularly with the utility on medium-sized projects. The Planner Office has made their work faster and easier.
At Edison then, a new image is also a new reality. Planners carrying pen computers are equipped to provide the very things the customer wants most: information, flexibility, and convenience.
Conclusions
As mobile computing technology matures, it will be increasingly viewed by utilities as an important tool for use in a competitive business environment. Mobile applications such as outage management, pole inspection, and mobile design are already proving that mobile computing can have a dramatic impact in terms of productivity gain. Mobile computing, we believe, will also emerge as a key technology in improving and maintaining customer relations. For utilities dedicated to providing highly efficient and effective customer service, mobile computing will provide the means to respond more quickly to certain types of problems and to provide better information at the job site.