Work orders and GIS in the field: quantifying cost savings at the city of Arlington, Texas

Work orders and GIS in the field: quantifying cost savings at the city of Arlington, Texas

Julia J. Hunt, P. E.
Information Services Manager, Water Utilities
City of Arlington, P.O. Box 231, Mail Stop 01-0203
Arlington, Texas 76004-0231
Phone: 817-459-6604
Fax: 817-459-6626
E-mail: huntj@onramp.net

Robert W. Finkle
President
IT Nexus, Inc., 10129 W. Dartmouth, Suite 9304
Lakewood, Colorado 80227
Phone: 720-962-0595
Fax: 720-962-0561

Business Drivers at Arlington Water Utilities
Like many utilities, the City of Arlington's Water Utilities Department automated the front office component of its work order system. The system issues and manages utility work orders using a mainframe application - but the flow of information between the field and the front office was still a paper process. It was recognized that allowing field crews to access and closeout work orders from the field could achieve meaningful cost savings. But the City of Arlington requires that all expenditure decisions of this type be clearly cost justified.

The City is an efficiently run municipal organization and proud of the fact that it operates at one of the lowest staff-to-citizen ratios in its geographic region. Arlington Water Utilities strongly embraces these values and the utility is run much like a private sector organization.

In part this is due to the utility's concern about the growing national trend toward privatization of public utilities. During the 1990's many public water companies found their governing boards and councils accepting offers from large private sector companies to take over the jurisdiction's water and sewer operations. Their selling point is significantly reduced costs to the public - a highly effective argument when a jurisdiction finds the cost and staff ratios of its utility operations are significantly above national averages. Arlington Water Utilities is acutely aware of this trend and is focused on continually improving operating efficiencies and customer satisfaction as their best defense against privatization.

The focus at Arlington Water Utilities on using computers to achieve efficient operations is also due to the Director and Assistant Director of the utility. They represent the "new generation" of water utility managers - individuals who recognize that information technology is an important and necessary tool for advancing the efficiency and effectiveness of utility operations.

Arlington's Work Order Problem
Even when computers are used to manage the generation and analysis of work orders, issuing and closing out work orders can be a highly manual and paper intensive process. This is because work order automation often stops at the front office and rarely extends the automation into the field. Under these circumstances, work orders are printed out from a mainframe application and given to work crews who must manually record on each work order the work performed. Work Order crews then have to sort the work orders into geographic routes. As work is completed and recorded in the field, paper floods back to the front office and all the hand written information must be entered into the computer. Even a medium sized utility will issue thousands of work orders a month. At the City of Arlington, over 5,000 work orders are issued each month for meter services alone. This amounts to a great deal of time spent printing, routing, filling out and dataentering work order information.

Arlington Water Utilities had only automated the front office component of is work orders. And its managers had to deal with a range of problems directly resulting from the high degree of manual record keeping that the front office system required:

Backlog of Work Order "Close-outs": completed work orders were stacking up awaiting data entry. At any one time the Utility's Work Order Clerks would have 2 to 4 weeks of work orders (as many as 4-5,000) that had not been entered to the mainframe database.
Increased Costs for Overtime Pay: to overcome the backlog, the Utility found itself routinely paying overtime wages to get the data entered to the mainframe.
Lost Work Orders: due to the reliance on paper, work orders and work order close-outs were being lost, resulting in the need to re-issue work orders or the loss of valuable data on work order completions.
Poor Customer Service Response: because customer calls were not immediately entered to the computer, customer services representatives were unable to respond to customer calls in a timely manner.
Delayed Performance Data: the Utility's managers were complaining because one of their primary management tools - statistics on the number of work orders completed and the status of open work orders - was not providing needed information on a timely basis.
Loss of Confidence: the Water Utility managers were increasingly loosing confidence in the mainframe system and its ability to support their management of field operations. It was clear to Water Utility management that a solution to these work order problems had to be developed. Upon examination of the problem, it was learned that the issue was not with the mainframe work order application, but with the work effort associated with the manual flow of information between the front office and the field. It was decided to continue the use of the mainframe work order application and to automate the information flow between the field and the front office. This would be done by implementing a Mobile Data Communications System that allowed computers in the field to access the mainframe using a wireless (radio frequency) network. The field computers would provide field staff an ability to retrieve and enter work order information and to view and query digital GIS maps.

Justifying New Technology
To win approval for extending work order automation into the field by implementing a Mobile Data Communications System (MDCS) the Water Information Systems Manager had to analyze the current environment in order to prepare reasonable estimates of potential savings and the cost of the proposed solution.

Estimating Potential Savings with MDCS
Work flow diagrams were prepared to understand the tasks and staff effort associated with each step in the work order process. Based on this analysis, three primary work activities were identified that would generate cost savings using computers in the field.

Meter Service Work Orders: customer service clerks would save time by not having to enter the work order close-out information provided by the Meter Service field crews after they completed a work order. Instead, the crew would enter the data using their mobile computers directly from the field.
Field Operations - Investigation Work Orders: the Service Specialists who perform field investigations that result in the creation of work orders would save time by typing information directly into the computer rather than manually filling out a work order form. Additional time savings would occur because clerks would no longer have to enter the information from the work order forms submitted by the Service Specialists.
Field Operations - Sewer Stop Work Orders: the night crew would save travel time by being able to access work orders and maps from the field rather than driving back to the front office to access GIS maps and records of the sewer system.

With these three work activities isolated, estimates were prepared of the savings in staff time and staff cost that Water Utilities would realize by implementing the MDCS. It was estimated that with the MDCS solution Water Utilities could save $268,650 per year. Table 1 reports the estimated time and cost savings for each activity.

Table 1Estimated Annual Time and Cost Savings

Activity	Quantity of Work Orders	Time Savings per Work Order	Hourly Rate	Total Estimated Annual Savings
Meter Service Work Orders	59,435 per year	17.2 min.	$15/hour (includes overtime pay)	$255, 570
Investigation Work Orders	4,200 per year	Service Specialists: 2 min. Clerks: 7.5 min.	$18/hour $10/hour	$2,520 $5,250
Sewer Stop Work Orders	295 per year	20 minutes on 50% of the work orders	$108/hour (staff and equipment costs)	$5,310
TOTAL				$268,650

Comparing Costs and Savings
The cost for Arlington Water Utilities to implement the MDCS and field computers included one-time capital cost and annually recurring operating costs. The total capital cost for implementing the MDCS and field computers was $244,720. Table 2 summarizes these costs.

Table 2Estimated Costs for Implementing MDCS Solution

Water Utilities prepared a cost justification that demonstrated the department could save $268,650 in work effort each year if it implemented the MDCS but that its total capital cost for the system would be only $244,720. The new system would pay for itself within 1 year and as a result was approved for implementation.

Arlington's MDCS Technology Architecture
Providing field access to the City's work order mainframe required that Arlington implement a wireless Mobile Data Communications System (MDCS). The MDCS had two primary objectives:

Establishing a message switch or gateway that passes radio frequency (RF) data between the mobile field computer and the City's IBM mainframe
Implementing an efficient messaging system that would not overwhelm the wireless RF environment

Initially the City of Arlington thought the MDCS would employ cellular digital packet data (CDPD) telecommunication services purchased from the telephone company and a standard email communication system that uses a SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol). Upon a technical investigation of these assumptions, the City learned of limitations altered their initial technical assumptions and approach.

* The MDCS solution required the implementation of a wireless message switch or gateway which was cost shared by 2 other City departments who would use the gateway for other purposes. This resulted in a 3-way split of the cost based on each department's proportional use of the system.

Since CDPD is a commercially shared radio frequency, the City realized that they would have no control over traffic volume. If CDPD was used it could result in an over-saturated RF line that could interrupt data communications between the field and the mainframe. In the face of this limitation, it was decided to take advantage of an existing radio tower and radio frequency register with the FCC that was owned by the City to establish a private, dedicated radio communications environment. An additional benefit of this approach was the City saved the $49/month/mobile PC cost that would be charged to use the CDPD service.

The City also learned that using a standard SMTP email protocol for messaging was not appropriate for a RF communications environment. After reviewing several vendor responses on how to establish a message switch or gateway that would operate effectively in a RF environment, the City accepted Motorola's proposal to implement IBM's Wireless Network Gateway and E-Net solution. This solution uses IBM's TCP/IP optimization equipment and application to implement an efficient messaging system within the RF environment.

Figure 1 provides a simple diagram of the MDCS being implemented by the City. The City expects the implementation of its MDCS will be completed by February, 2000.

Implementing the City's MDCS solution required the coordination of both technical and human issues. Two aspects of particular interest in the City's implementation were the development of the GIS application for accessing maps and the steps taken by the City to ensure its field staff were properly trained.

Accessing GIS Maps from the Field
An important component of the MDCS solution was to provide the City's field crews with the ability to access GIS infrastructure maps directly from the field, reducing their need to drive into the main office to research maps and records. To achieve this the City's GIS staff developed an application specifically written for use on the mobile data computers. The application allows field staff to view the location of water and sewer infrastructure in relationship to the City's tax parcels and street right-of-way. An important capability of the application is an easy-to-use "Identify" function. This function allows the user to select a map theme and an infrastructure component and then view all the descriptive information associated with the component.

Training - A Critical Element for a Successful Roll-out
The City recognized that technology alone would not create a successful system and that the training of field staff in the use of the new tools was critical to success. Because of its importance, training for field staff was carefully planned and structured to include all aspects of the new system: the messaging software, the mainframe work management system, and the GIS application. Training documents were prepared for all three of these sub-systems. Field personnel were then given 5 days of individual training. Each training session lasted one hour each day, with the training of each field employee taking one week per person. After training, each field person practiced his/her newly acquire skills by entering some of their own work orders each day. The training schedule of 1 person for 1 hour a day over 1 week was structured to minimize the impacts of removing a field person from work for 5 hours of training while ensuring that training was both rigorous and delivered on a "one-on-one" basis.

Conclusions
In summary, the City of Arlington's field automation initiative is in response to strategies identified by the City Council for improving city services. The MDCS solution is a key element in enabling the Water Department to achieve operational excellence in an important service delivery area. It is achieving benefits for the Water Department and the citizens of Arlington in a number of ways by improving services, enhancing productivity and avoiding costs. These benefits include:

Ability to provide "real time" response to customer inquiries on the status of work orders
GS by reducing the over-time hours that must be worked by customer service representatives
The elimination of lost paperwork and redundant work effort
Faster and more accurate performance data for improved management of field operations
Reduced staff time for entering data and accessing maps and records information
Demonstrating good fiscal stewardship to the citizens and the City Council of Arlington