Mobile Geoengineering: Extending the office to the field
4. Where are the benefits?
The business case for investment in field systems covers both tangible and intangible
areas. The experience within Southern Water shows that there is a strong case to be
made for investment in field systems. The tangible benefits include improved efficiency
through reduced traveling time, less standing time, and less wasted time.
Traveling time is reduced firstly because it is possible to send the field worker direct to
a job. The difference from the old way of working is that the field worker can do a
‘home start’ and be directed to the first location without having to visit the office first.
Investigations have shown that this initiative alone can free up an hour per day for
productive work.
Reviewing the working day has shown that there are frequent occasions where a visit to
the depot is required in order to obtain a copy of the relevant record or other supporting
information. If the data is provided to the field worker electronically these journeys to
the depot can be significantly reduced, The fact that the field worker has the relevant
information to hand also means that the work crew are not left standing whilst the data
is obtained from the Depot.
A further area of benefit is derived from the field worker having accurate up to date
information to hand. Research with the field workers has shown that there are frequent
occasions where the length of a job has been extended because the information was
out of date or inaccurate. This problem has arisen from the time when paper records
were the only practical way of providing the field worker with records. One outcome of
this was that each worker had their own paper based set of records which were kept up
to date with the information of which that worker was aware. However the drawback
was it did not contain the knowledge that other workers had with the net result that
there were many partially up dated records, but not one was complete. Now, with the
master record maintained held centrally and distributed electronically there is no reason
for the field worker to have out of date records thereby minimizing the risk of wasting
time on site.
The intangible benefits are improved responsiveness, improved customer service and
confidence by the field workers that the record is right. The introduction of
communications that can handle packets of data means that it is possible to pass an
instruction using the printed word instead of by voice. Whereas using two way voice
communications may take up to one hour to contact a field worker if he/she is away
from the vehicle, using transmitting packets of data means that the work instruction is
receive in textual form, The field worker is alerted to the fact that a new message is
awaiting his attention using a pager system, and the response time is reduced
significantly. This in turn improves the customer service.
A final area of benefit of using the field system is in providing electronic forms. The
field workers are required to complete a significant number of forms currently on paper.
By making the forms electronic the process of data capture, verification and onward
transmission is improved significantly. The benefit is not only in the improved process
for the field worker, but it also brings benefit to the support o~ce, in that it reduces the
administration effort required to collate and enter the information onto the corporate
systems.
Overall it is estimated that field systems can bring a benefit in improved productivity to
the field worker of 15°/0- 25°/0. Additionally the transfer of data to and from the central
oticefdepot electronically yields a further benefit of 5°/0- 10°/0reduction in the
administration effort.
If a field worker is defined as someone who spends more than 50°/0of their time out of
the office, it has been estimated that up to 50°/0 of all staff come into this definition. If
this is true, the benefits are very significant.
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