Economic justification work management and AM/FM/GIS systems
The result is that crew scheduling is done at the last possible moment to avoid the "fires."
Last minute scheduling is worse: crews lose valuable time by standing around waiting for
orders and wait for materials. They may return with the job incomplete since the
supervisor did not check that the job was correct and ready for crews in the field. The
crews do the best they can, but have less time available to do the construction, because
of the delays. In addition, the schedule is not based on estimated times for a job or
location. This results in excessive travel, jobs set up twice, and many crews are assigned
less than eight hours of work.
Crews are required to do the accounting for the jobs. Their daily time sheets are filled out
with the account numbers that are used to record time and provide data used for vehicle
reports. Many errors are made; the accounting is not consistent or accurate. There is a
tendency for people to use a few numbers that they remember because they use them
often. This same daily time sheet is used to post payroll and to cost out the jobs.
Paperwork that is sent into corporate for close-out is often missing or inaccurate.
Close-out is also difficult in the local areas. First, the paperwork is trued up to match the
material issued with the work order. This manual process requires searching for paper as
most orders use several issue tickets. The field sketch has to be manually posted to all
versions of the maps. If the company has an older mapping system that has primary,
secondary, pole, street light, underground, and feeder tie maps, it means the information
may be posted to three or four maps. The drafter retrieves the working map, "red lining"
in the changes. This is done one job and one map at a time. When "enough" red lines
are on a working copy, the original is updated, reproduced, and distributed. The process
requires a great deal of work and the maps and facilities' records are always out of date,
sometimes by several months.
In some companies no one is planning and scheduling to optimize the total work force
and its activities. This may be caused by the fact that there is no company wide data
bases that show how much work is planned, where it is and when it needs to be done.
There is no man-hour estimate available for each job. This results in the work force
controlling and determining the quantity of work that constitutes a full day.
Not every job has a specific problem, but the traditional manual system itself is not an
effectual or efficient work process. The process prohibits jobs moving quickly and at the
lowest cost due to the redundant and mundane clerical work required. A work
management system helps to eliminate these problems, allowing for better customer
service with lower costs.
Automated WMIS/GIS System
The WMIS/GIS should be a corporate effort strongly supported by upper management
and the Information Services (IS) department. The user must be a part of the process
and must provide strong support and buy in to this new way of doing business. The
installation of a WMIS/GIS should start with an examination of existing systems,
procedures and paperwork. Users should examine the major functions: interfacing with
customers, writing work orders, designing projects, scheduling work, procuring material,
construction management, maintenance management, etc. The users must then decide
how best to operate. A team should look at all of company's areas and see how they
work; chances are the areas operate differently. Find the best practice and adopt it for
the entire company, then review it for further improvements.
Figure 1 shows a flow chart of a WMIS/GIS system. We will be following it to see how
the operation can change. This sample flow diagram shows how the WMIS/GIS handles
work initiated by customer request, engineering planning, maintenance analysis or
trouble work. To understand the process and recognize the savings, we will follow a
request for service through WMIS/GIS.
A customer service clerk takes a customer request and puts it directly on the computer.
This initiates the job and instantly assigns a work request number. There are no multiple
part forms to burst and mail, no chance of losing a job as it moves immediately into
engineering, metering and other departments. The customer receives one call shopping,
as the clerk is able to obtain the required information without transferring the customer to
another department. Work from other departments within the company is entered in a
similar manner by the person closest to the work. The company gets the benefit of one
time entry of information; no one has to re-enter any of the information. WMIS is able to
track the job; the system classifies each job in one of the stages shown on Figure 1.
Figure 1. Work Management System/GIS Work
Field investigation results in either a simple service drop or construction required (more
than a service). Entries as to estimated length and size of the cable are made in
WMIS/GIS for a simple service by the designer and the as build data is entered by the
construction crew. The result of these entries is all the necessary work orders, material
issues, and etc.. This reduces a thirty-minute job to a few minutes.
