Managing the Mobile Enterprise
Scott Munro Director Product Marketing MDSI Mobile Data Solutions
Industry Trends
The environment in which utility companies operate is changing. Industry trends are re-defining both the types of solutions that utilities seek. Key Business Trends Several business key trends are driving demand for enterprise workforce management solutions. Deregulation—Competition arising from deregulation increases focus on operational efficiency and customer-oriented service practices. The ramification is that utilities want best of breed applications that automate and enforce best practices. At the same time, they need solutions that are fast and simple to deploy to seize or maintain competitive advantage. Solutions must minimize initial customer investment both in terms of money and implementation time. The time from purchase decision to benefits must be short. Mergers and Acquisitions / Globalization—M&A activity and globalization mean that divergent work practices across the organization and change management are the norm. Utilities need solutions that are flexible enough to meet the different needs of separate groups within the organization, extensible to accommodate the needs of new groups as they join the corporation, adaptable to business processes changes, and scalable to grow with the organization. Solutions must be localized to address local cultural, language, and presentation needs. Changing roles means that the user interface must be personalized to deliver the information that each user needs to work effectively. End users want a role-based, personalized single access point that gives them fast and convenient access to everything they need from a Web browser. Enterprise Integration—Decades of regulation encouraged a culture that built a legacy of isolated systems, each designed to serve the needs of a single department. Utilities are looking to drive business benefits from solutions that integrate their business processes. Utilities expect vendors to provide interoperable solutions that leverage industry standards to deliver an open architecture. The ability for a solution to “plug and play” with other solutions is essential to supporting enterprise workflow management. This means that solutions must understand their position in the enterprise and deliver distinct value. Universal Technician—Utilities are restructuring their mobile workforces from separate specialized teams, each tasked with a narrowly focused set of work activities, to a more generalist approach. Mobile workers are cross-trained in a wider variety of skills and can be assigned to a greater range of work activities as the need arises. This means that solutions must be adaptable to support daily adjustments to work practices and workforce responsibilities while supporting the changing, personalized information needs of each user. Mobile Office—Utilities are moving from niche wireless applications to broad use of mobile applications throughout their enterprises. Mobile applications are seen as core elements of improving efficiency and maintaining a competitive edge. Increased awareness and utilization of mobile technology is driving utilities to provide mobile access to more workers for more uses. Utilities that have realized the benefits of workforce management in their service organizations want to enable other parts of their organization. Utilities expect solutions to support the mobility needs of users with different work practices and business cases for mobile computing. In particular, this means that solutions must support a wide variety of mobile computers and handheld devices such as personal digital assistants (PDA), mobile phones, and two-way pagers. Key Technology Trends Business trends are driving demand for the benefits of enterprise workforce management. However, it is technology trends that are changing how these benefits are delivered. Proliferation of Mobile Platforms—Diverse, low cost mobile computing platforms are enabling the business case for mobility. The choice of mobile platform has expanded from rugged PCs to include a wide variety of mobile devices meeting the needs of different types of mobile users: Windows CE handhelds, two-way pagers, PDAs, and mobile phones. It is now cost effective to provide all mobile workers with access to corporate information and applications. Enabling Mobile Applications made Easy—Java based thin client technology and standards such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for mobile phones are simplifying the task of deploying wireless applications to heterogeneous mobile platforms. It is now possible to meet the mobile information needs of all mobile workers. Java, eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and web browsers provide device independence on Windows platforms while WAP provides air interface and device independence for users of digital handheld devices such as mobile phones. An application developed in Wireless Markup Language (WML) will run on any WAP-compliant device deploying a microbrowser. High Bandwidth Ubiquitous Wireless— Wireless communication is becoming ubiquitous, reliable and inexpensive. GPRS and cdma2000 (phase 1) will boost wireless data rates over 100 Kbps in the next two years. Second generation wireless systems such as CDMA, TDMA and GPS that are optimized for voice service and offer limited data capabilities will be superceded by third generation (3G) wireless systems in 3 to 5 years. 3G systems promise to provide data rates up to 2 Mbps using wideband CDMA. In the short term, personalized, thin, text-based clients will be more successful than fat applications like video. Simple transactions that are easily actionable will prevail. Mobile workforce management is a perfect example of a wireless application that will be successful on a handheld device. The Dawn of the Internet Era—Lou Gerstner of IBM has said that the era of the PC is over. The concept of stand-alone or client server computing is replaced by the Internet. It used to be that openness was achieved by standardizing on hardware, operating systems and databases. Conforming to a small set of “standards” allowed companies to feel secure in adopting an environment because they could obtain trained resources and support. The network, in the form of IP communications and internetworking is now the dominant model. With the advent of standards such as XML for communicating and describing content and application hosting for managing applications the issue of “openness” has moved to a whole new level. The operating system, hardware and database will be transparent to the consumer of e-services. Ironically, we are moving back to the mainframe mode of computing with centralized processing and databases and thin clients. This time, however, the network is not intra-enterprise it is inter-enterprise, encompassing the entire world. Application Hosting—Application service providers (ASP) deliver and support software as a service over a network such as the Internet in contrast to traditional, one-time delivery as a licensed product. The ASP is, in effect, renting the application and is responsible for providing all the activities and expertise required to customize, host, manage, and support the software. This includes everything from network services, to data center operations, to application management and business systems integration. The ASP model brings about a fundamental transition in the distribution of software from a product to a delivered, customized, quality-based service. Services are accessed using web browsers. This means end users can work from anywhere, anytime using any web-enabled device from PCs to mobile phones. Renting applications over the Internet equalizes the cost of using enterprise applications by providing access to enterprise class hardware, software, and communications resources to any company. It promises to be a quick way to acquire enterprise applications with a modest up front cost. That’s true especially for small and medium sized businesses that have the pent up demand for enterprise applications but don’t have the resources to buy, implement and maintain their own software. Enterprise Application Integration—Enterprise application integration is making it cheaper and easier for applications to “plug and play”. This creates greater opportunities for vendors of specialized software meeting the unique needs of specific target users to “bundle” their software to form a larger solution. Rather than relying on a single organization to provide an enterprise-class solution, utilities can use business frameworks to enable workflow management between different applications. The answer used to be “buy from the same vendor”, the answer now is “use a common framework” enabled by technologies such as XML, CORBA, and EAI software. Once a common, standard, framework for communication is established, anyone can and will deliver business capabilities. Instead of the resources of one company, utilities have the resources of the entire world available to them. Why are these Trends Relevant? CRM, ERP, and other enterprise application see workforce management, in the form of scheduling and dispatch, as within their solution scope. While implementing workforce management as part of a vertical application increases the effectiveness of individual departments, it does not provide benefits across the enterprise since technicians cannot be managed across organizational boundaries. Enterprise applications such as CIS, OMS, and WMS are only able to control the work and resources within their domain. The systems become, in effect, a barrier to establishing more efficient work practices. Workforce management is not an element of a vertical solution within the enterprise. It is a horizontal solution for the entire workforce. Applying workforce management to the entire organization instead of applying it separately to individual groups within the organization offers a compelling business case by creating opportunities to more effectively manage the entire workforce. Industry trends mean that the business processes and organization of utilities changes frequently. Applying workforce management as an element of a vertical solution introduces barriers to adapting the workforce to meet new corporate goals. When a core element of operational effectiveness is efficient management of the resources performing work, a utility company’s IT infrastructure must be adaptable to change not be a barrier to continuous improvement. EWM leverages an understanding of resources and work to help utilities effectively deploy mobile resources (personnel, equipment) to achieve business objectives. It uses its understanding of order models and resource profiles to efficiently assign, dispatch and monitor the work across the enterprise. EWM does not deliver a generalized solution meeting some of the needs of the entire workforce. EWM uses an in-depth understanding of the workforce management needs of each part of the utility organization from routine meter work to construction to deliver a 100% solution. Technology trends are clearly promoting the use of best-of-breed solutions with a sharp focus on automating a well-defined business process. Rather than buying enterprise-class business solutions from a single vendor, customers will choose to use a common framework to enable interoperability between best-of-breed solutions. Ewm Capabilities Fundamental EWM capabilities include order management, resource management, scheduling, operations management, application integration, and mobility management. Scheduling Scheduling is the efficient assignment of planned work to available resources. It determines the staff that should perform given jobs in a defined order at specified times on specific days. Scheduling works within the bounds of workforce availability and defined workload to optimize the assignment of work according to modifiable optimization criteria based on client business goals and in response to resource and work order status changes in real-time. Scheduling manages the offering of appointments to customers within business practices, regulatory requirements, and resource constraints, and then assigns orders to technicians by matching the priority, location, job type, appointment window, and duration of orders with the organization, location, available time, skills and equipment of resources. Scheduling ensures that technicians are where they are supposed to be with the proper equipment at the right time. Resource Management Effective resource management means that the scheduled workforce is appropriate for the anticipated workload and is the most efficient resource allocation within the constraints of company policies and union rules. Resource management is a pre-requisite for efficient assignment of work to workforce—the work assignment process cannot effectively assign work if the scheduled workforce is a poor match for the workload. Resource management not only provides the framework for minimizing overtime and meeting appointments, it also identifies resource under utilization. This creates the opportunity to perform more work or reduce the resource profile within the bounds of organizational work practices. The resource management process involves allocating technicians and equipment to work areas and shifts based on historical workload (e.g., what happened last year), planned workload (e.g., building a new subdivision), and expected but unpredictable events (e.g., a cold snap or a bad storm). Resource management plans, controls and tracks the technicians and crews that perform work and their attributes that affect work assignment. It addresses the long-term allocation of resources to locations, crews and shifts, the short-term adjustment of resource allocation to address unexpected conditions such as sickness and unplanned work. It provides real-time tracking of resource status, location, and activities. Order Management Orders management cooperates with enterprise applications to create, manipulate, control and complete work. Order management automates the work order life cycle from the time the work orders are released from the order creation system until they are completed by technicians. It provides technicians with timely access to all the information they need to complete work right the first time. It collects accurate and timely work results from the field. It provides stakeholders in the order process with access to work order requirements and work results. Order management provides the flexibility to control work orders from disparate order creation systems. Thus, it provides a platform for viewing and manipulating work spanning the entire enterprise. In combination with resource management and scheduling this represents a tremendous opportunity to more effectively manage work. It separates work orders attributes that affect assignment and control of the work from those that are instructions to technicians responsible for performing the work. It accounts for relationships between work orders and the supporting information needed to understand the work to be performed, to whom it should be assigned, to communicate with dispatchers and technicians, and to collect and validate work order results. It captures information about the work performed in the field, ensures it meets corporate validation criteria, and gets it to the enterprise applications that need the information. Operations Management Operations management is the effective real-time monitoring of the work force as it processes work requests and the study of key business indicators to aid management decision-making. Timely feedback of work status and work results minimizes end-of-day effort, increases the accuracy of the information, informs dispatchers and managers of work progress, and alerts them to unusual circumstances requiring attention. When the work force is ahead of schedule, timely feedback provides a means to make the necessary adjustment to offer more service appointments to customers. Likewise if the work force falls behind schedule, the adjustment of appointment offerings, overtime, and/or changing the sequence of the load is necessary is meet customer expectations and cost constraints. It’s real-time status information on technician activities and order status drives workload balancing. Unusual or high priority events requiring special handling (e.g., emergencies) are dealt with expeditiously. Events may be indicative of normal happenings requiring acknowledgment (e.g., new order assigned to a technician) or an emergency situation requiring special attention (e.g., gas leak). It delivers both a macro view of the progress of work across the organization as well as a detailed view of the status of individual work orders. Operations management increases the effectiveness of the decision making and direction setting process related to workforce management. It allows companies to improve insights into trends in their operations and increase the accuracy of forecasts and plans. Operations management provides information on an on-demand, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis to drive short-term tactical adjustments or long-term strategic corrective action. Application Integration Application integration is the bridging mechanism between EWM and enterprise applications. It is the foundation for leveraging an enterprise view of workflow management to create business benefits. Application integration transforms isolated systems, each designed to serve the needs of a single department, into interoperable solutions on an open architecture. It addresses both the information needs of EWM and the enterprise applications with which it interacts. It defines what information that EWM collects from the field is of interest to what application, in what format, and by what delivery mechanism. It offers options for integrating with EWM at the messaging and transport layer; offers options for taking what enterprise applications can provide and transforming it into something meaningful to EWM; and simplifies the task of enterprise application integration. Mobility Management Mobility management is about eliminating the barrier between field resources and the corporate information they need to perform their work. It provides mobile access through widely accepted public and private networks (e.g., CDPD, GSM). It deals with the unique problems of operating remotely in a wireless environment. In addition to providing field workers with access to EWM capabilities, it enables access to other enterprise applications, manages connectivity to handle wireless constraints, and presents an integrated mobile desktop for the field worker. It delivers information the mobile workforce needs to effectively perform work while using workflow enforcement to ensure best practices. The goal is to simplify the daily activities of mobile workers by providing a consistent and simple user interface that isolates the mobile worker from the details of how information is extracted from and committed to corporate databases. Benefits of EWM EWM brings the benefits of enterprise applications to the field. The work order cycle is completely automated from work order initiation to work closure. Improved Customer Service
Enterprise workforce management complements enterprise applications by extending their reach to the field while recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities to manage work and resources crossing system and organizational boundaries. EWM brings the benefits of enterprise applications to the field while ensuring consistency in the handling of work orders across the organization and compliance with best practices in workforce management. EWM provides an adaptable, scalable, extensible, flexible, and open solution for managing the work order cycle from work order initiation to work order closure. EWM combines knowledge of the order models of each enterprise application with a focus on workforce management to deliver a highly effective solution for utilities. | ||
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