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Dispatch it, track it, field it – integrate it!
Kevin North
Severn Trent Systems
Alexander House, Fleming Way
Swindon, Wiltshire SN1 2NG United Kingdom
Kevin North
Severn Trent Systems
Alexander House, Fleming Way
Swindon, Wiltshire SN1 2NG United Kingdom
Abstract
Work Management Solutions - Integration is a crucial key enabler – the value of the whole is worth more than the sum of it’s parts.
This paper explores the value of integrating a mobile system into a work management solution to deliver the real-time benefits required by today’s Utility organisations. Office based work management and scheduling systems provide the necessary strategic functionality to enable the planning, optimisation and scheduling of work and resources right up to the point of issue. However, for those systems to also provide this functionality in an operational time frame – they need feedback from the field, in real time.
The integration of a functionally rich mobile dispatch system, a mobile work application and robust real time communications system to the above systems brings real benefits to those planning and optimising work and resources as well as the mobile workforce themselves.
However, on the road to success there are many options to select in terms of development environments, thick/thin clients and mobile hardware platforms. Careful analysis of the options will result in the implementation of a successful integrated system capable of delivering tangible cost benefits, improvements in customer service and workforce productivity and an empowered mobile workforce.
Introduction
The benefits of implementing a work and asset management system coupled with constraint based scheduling for resource optimisation are well understood and documented.
In addition the added benefits realised from the implementation of a mobile system have been the subject of many conference papers over recent years. This paper explores the significant improvements in productivity and optimisation that are achieved when the above systems are fully integrated into a seamless solution.
Technology, particularly in the mobile arena, is advancing at an incredible rate and the choices available to the customer may seem bewildering to some. It is all too easy to wait and see what technological developments will be launched next week, month, year.
Therefore, this paper also outlines the authors view on a recommended buying strategy that will insulate the customer from risky leading edge technology and ‘out of date’ poor benefit solutions.
Setting the Scene
Office based work management and scheduling systems provide the necessary strategic functionality to enable the planning, optimisation and scheduling of work and resources right up to the point of issue. However, for those systems to also provide this functionality in an operational timeframe – they need feedback from the field, in real time.
Three components are involved in the above statement:
1. Work Management Systems – a work process manager acting as a central conduit for managing all work, resources and related information. A functionally rich enterprise software product offering the business critical functionality needed to manage work from initiation through to completion.
2. Scheduling Systems – using constraint based scheduling techniques to automatically generate an optimal schedule. The scheduler takes information from the work management system – work available, crew availability, skills, performance factors and geographical preferences and creates a schedule based upon rules and constraints designed to meet the company’s business objectives.
3. Mobile Systems – a solution covering all of the task and data requirements of the field workforce, extending the office work management environment into the field. An office based Dispatcher issues scheduled work to mobile devices (hand held or laptop computers) via wired or wireless communications methods. Field workers are able to view their work, change the status of jobs and collect completion data whilst in the field.
Traditionally, workflow between the three components is triggered by a status change e.g. ready to schedule, scheduled – ready for issue etc. However, events that happen in the field can affect both current work and the planning of new work and without real time communication links and integration of the components these effects are difficult to manage and build into the schedule.
Traditional workflow centres around how much time is left before the job needs doing. This affects the choices available to planners and schedulers. Figure 1 demonstrates the traditional task timeline.
Figure 1 Task Timeline
Planning, by its very nature is based on a set of assumptions. The expected duration of a job is defined by the nature of the job itself and experience of how long jobs of this nature take to complete. In addition, availability of field workers is based on their planned availability possibly recorded days in advance of current work. However, when the day comes a field worker could be ill and unable to work, a job could take longer than planned because of interruptions from say, other utility work or inclement weather.
In most situations one could argue that by building in ‘spare time’ in the work schedule, the natural influences of the real world should not affect the field workers ability to complete most of the work allocated to them. However, this is not very efficient from a productivity stand point.
The Solution
How can integration help?
Consider the following scenario:
Choosing the right technology mix ensures that integration can be achieved, not just to the point where data collected on site is displayed on the supporting corporate system, but that it is acted upon to allow successful management of day to day operations.
The earlier section ‘Setting the Scene’, gave two examples regarding the interference of planned work: in-day interruptions and temporary crew unavailability. There are many more potential problems, particularly when managing remote, geographically dispersed field workers; themselves faced with a raft of environmental challenges. The ability to receive information from the field and be flexible enough to modify schedules in light of this collected information is crucial if businesses are to succeed in this highly competitive environment. In fact, the author believes that the impact of cost cutting and downsizing can only be survived in this industry if integrated mobile systems are implemented.
The benefits of mobile systems and integration are discussed in the next section.
Benefits
The benefits of mobile systems are well understood. Systems that use wireless, real-time communications deliver significant benefits over those that are disconnected for most of the working day. Figure 1 shows the benefits wedge.
Key benefits (to this paper) in the wireless scenario above are ‘up to date data’ and ‘dynamic re-planning’, both only available with an integrated solution.
A large user of mobile systems in the United Kingdom has reported 15 to 25% efficiency gains in the field and 10 to 15% gains in the office following the successful implementation of mobile systems.
Interestingly, with the exception of gains made by not requiring data entry clerks in the office, a significant gain area is travelling. This includes:
The Way Forward
The way forward is to procure an integrated suite of work management products.
A simple enough statement, but what about advances in technology? Should I buy now or should I wait for the next leading edge gadget to be launched? It might be useful to first take a historical look at mobile systems and their ‘take up’ in the industry:
For at least the last 5 years mobile data has been “about to take off”. Many companies have trialled the technology, but so far adopters have been few and far between. The principle customers have been the emergency services and the transport sector – although recently there has been increasing adoption by the service management industry.
Why has the take up been so slow? This can be traced to several factors:
Key Utility Requirements
Key to the architectural choice is a recognition that any mission critical field system – such as that required, or believed to be required, by Utilities – needs to cope with the limitations that:
However, when selecting a new architecture, it should be noted that not all users may face these limitations. For instance:
Office users will almost always have a good LAN connection – and even a WAN connection typically provides 10 or 100 times more bandwidth than a wireless link. Contractors present too dynamic a population to have software installed every time they are commissioned , and have more limited access needs.
Managers in the field who are occasional users may not be cost justified for a mission critical agent, and may be prepared to trade off a cheaper licence price in return for the occasional lack of access to the system.
As a result, there is a recognised opportunity to develop a true ‘thin client’ to complement the “middleweight” client being developed for mission critical users. The thin client would rely on servlets/applets at the central database/web server to generate conventional web pages to be displayed in any connected browser.
Technical Considerations
Thick vs. Thin
The last year or so has seen a dramatic change in the options available to mobile and wireless system providers. As a result purchasers may find it hard to grasp the relative merits of the systems on offer. Here we present a quick guide to the pros and cons of the two main approaches to field system design.
The traditional approach to wireless system design has been one of “thick client”. This means that the mobile computer contains a relatively large application program and database to display data, provide functionality, store data, and transfer it either in batches (e.g. once a day) or in real-time back to base.
The “thin-client” is now in vogue since it is the foundation of Internet technology. With a thin client, the mobile computer has only a simple browser application (which often comes with the computer itself), and relies on a wireless link to the central computer system to provide functionality and data storage. However, this wireless link does not only need to provide enough bandwidth, it also needs to be available wherever the user is and the user needs to stay connected whilst transferring data in either direction. There are also cost implications when using a circuit switched bearer system where users pay on a time connected basis. Packet switched ‘always on’ systems will hopefully prove more economic.
The table below summarises the advantages of the two options:
It can be assumed that the advantages of one are the disadvantages of the other.
Hybrid Approach
Of course the two approaches are not mutually exclusive. The same central system could support thick clients for users who require mission critical field computing (e.g. your core field work-force), and thin clients for those who have less mission critical and more occasional access (e.g. some managers and supervisors). This brings the benefits of a mission critical system but without incurring excessive system costs when rolling out to a large user population. This is the approach taken by my company.
Routes to the Future
No one knows what the future may bring but planned advances in technology will allow users to adopt a hybrid approach to mobile systems moving to the ‘thinner’ end of the client options as wireless bandwidths improve. However, there are many buying strategies available.
Strategies worth examining include:
Since the future is so uncertain, there is a good argument for not paying too much attention to it and instead concentrating on putting in quickly a tried and tested system with a short-payback. This will enable benefits to be realized before the system becomes too expensive to support, too uncompetitive, or even discontinued.
Buy and Upgrade
It is attractive to try to plot an intercept course with the future. Implementing a moderately safe system now, but in a sufficiently modular fashion that elements can be swapped out as technologies mature. In doing so we must identify which changes are likely to have the biggest impact on our system, and try to build those in from the start, or skew the system towards them, so that the risk of high cost upgrades is avoided.
Buy for the Future
If all the hype about the Internet and Java is to be believed then it is tempting to think that systems can be built now and incorporate most of the technologies which feature highly in our prediction of the future. Such a system could be browser/Java based, running on Windows CE platforms, and operating on TCP/IP over the cellular telephone network. Future upgrades could be limited to adopting GPRS/UMTS and moving on to Java based terminals. The risk of course is that this is leading edge technology, which firstly may not work, and secondly may not actually be where the future is going.
Service Provision
The assumption so far has been that the user is buying software, hardware and air-time. A possible alternative strategy is to buy only a service. Such an approach insulates the customer from almost all changes, although at a price. Two generic approaches could be adopted. In the first the customer could specify the application, and have the provider move the application around between platforms, bearers and even operating systems. The second approach is to subscribe to essentially a bureau service, with an application being provided which meets the customer’s required functionality, but which may be switched out for an equally effective application at any time. Obviously the risk is now on the service provider, but they should be able to spread costs over a wider client base, and so be better placed to cope with unforeseen changes.
Analysis of the above options undertaken by specialists at Severn Trent Systems indicated that outsourcing wins. The only drawback is that there are not many, if any, companies offering such a service. Perhaps the closest are those companies offering the single integrated solutions, which remove all the systems integration worries from the customer, but whose functionality may not meet the needs of users. However whether these systems remain competitive will be interesting to see, as will whether their providers offer an evolutionary path to take advantage of new technology.
So, in the absence of a generic out-sourcing operation, and despite all the hype, perhaps users would be best just getting on with implementing systems based on the tried and tested technology. They should accept that in the relatively short term they may need a replacement system; but by then they should have made the initial key saving to make the system worthwhile. They can also then capitalise on the emerging technology once it is proven, rather than while it still presents a leading edge risk. For suppliers, it will be those who can provide working solutions today, but who track the new technology in order to provide a relatively painless upgrade or replacement path who will be best placed to satisfy the needs of the user.
The Recommended Approach
Choose a vendor that has:
Work Management Solutions - Integration is a crucial key enabler – the value of the whole is worth more than the sum of it’s parts.
This paper explores the value of integrating a mobile system into a work management solution to deliver the real-time benefits required by today’s Utility organisations. Office based work management and scheduling systems provide the necessary strategic functionality to enable the planning, optimisation and scheduling of work and resources right up to the point of issue. However, for those systems to also provide this functionality in an operational time frame – they need feedback from the field, in real time.
The integration of a functionally rich mobile dispatch system, a mobile work application and robust real time communications system to the above systems brings real benefits to those planning and optimising work and resources as well as the mobile workforce themselves.
However, on the road to success there are many options to select in terms of development environments, thick/thin clients and mobile hardware platforms. Careful analysis of the options will result in the implementation of a successful integrated system capable of delivering tangible cost benefits, improvements in customer service and workforce productivity and an empowered mobile workforce.
Introduction
The benefits of implementing a work and asset management system coupled with constraint based scheduling for resource optimisation are well understood and documented.
In addition the added benefits realised from the implementation of a mobile system have been the subject of many conference papers over recent years. This paper explores the significant improvements in productivity and optimisation that are achieved when the above systems are fully integrated into a seamless solution.
Technology, particularly in the mobile arena, is advancing at an incredible rate and the choices available to the customer may seem bewildering to some. It is all too easy to wait and see what technological developments will be launched next week, month, year.
Therefore, this paper also outlines the authors view on a recommended buying strategy that will insulate the customer from risky leading edge technology and ‘out of date’ poor benefit solutions.
Setting the Scene
Office based work management and scheduling systems provide the necessary strategic functionality to enable the planning, optimisation and scheduling of work and resources right up to the point of issue. However, for those systems to also provide this functionality in an operational timeframe – they need feedback from the field, in real time.
Three components are involved in the above statement:
1. Work Management Systems – a work process manager acting as a central conduit for managing all work, resources and related information. A functionally rich enterprise software product offering the business critical functionality needed to manage work from initiation through to completion.
2. Scheduling Systems – using constraint based scheduling techniques to automatically generate an optimal schedule. The scheduler takes information from the work management system – work available, crew availability, skills, performance factors and geographical preferences and creates a schedule based upon rules and constraints designed to meet the company’s business objectives.
3. Mobile Systems – a solution covering all of the task and data requirements of the field workforce, extending the office work management environment into the field. An office based Dispatcher issues scheduled work to mobile devices (hand held or laptop computers) via wired or wireless communications methods. Field workers are able to view their work, change the status of jobs and collect completion data whilst in the field.
Traditionally, workflow between the three components is triggered by a status change e.g. ready to schedule, scheduled – ready for issue etc. However, events that happen in the field can affect both current work and the planning of new work and without real time communication links and integration of the components these effects are difficult to manage and build into the schedule.
Traditional workflow centres around how much time is left before the job needs doing. This affects the choices available to planners and schedulers. Figure 1 demonstrates the traditional task timeline.
Figure 1 Task Timeline
Planning, by its very nature is based on a set of assumptions. The expected duration of a job is defined by the nature of the job itself and experience of how long jobs of this nature take to complete. In addition, availability of field workers is based on their planned availability possibly recorded days in advance of current work. However, when the day comes a field worker could be ill and unable to work, a job could take longer than planned because of interruptions from say, other utility work or inclement weather.
In most situations one could argue that by building in ‘spare time’ in the work schedule, the natural influences of the real world should not affect the field workers ability to complete most of the work allocated to them. However, this is not very efficient from a productivity stand point.
The Solution
How can integration help?
Consider the following scenario:
-
A field worker is equipped with a mobile computer linked to the Dispatcher
System via a real time wireless data communication link. As work progresses
and the status of that work is updated, these updates are transferred directly to
the Dispatcher System and on to the Scheduler. Status changes include:
travelling to job, arrived on site, work completed and all are date and time
stamped – of course this is only possible with real time feedback.
A Jeopardy System is continuously monitoring these status changes and comparing them with the planned schedule. Any deviations such as job overrun could immediately be resolved by running a schedule repair to de-allocate and re-allocate work to other field workers to ensure that work commitments are honoured – this is only possible if the Dispatcher and Scheduler are integrated.
In-day schedule repair can be undertaken provided that up-to-date information is available from the field.
Various Dispatcher issue schemes are operated. Some mobile operatives benefit from receiving their full days work in advance, others only require one job at a time. The Scheduler manages either type of schedule scenario when provided with up to date progress from the field.
-
Continual amendment to ‘the schedule’ based on the real time
transfer and acceptance of data throughout the whole system.
Choosing the right technology mix ensures that integration can be achieved, not just to the point where data collected on site is displayed on the supporting corporate system, but that it is acted upon to allow successful management of day to day operations.
The earlier section ‘Setting the Scene’, gave two examples regarding the interference of planned work: in-day interruptions and temporary crew unavailability. There are many more potential problems, particularly when managing remote, geographically dispersed field workers; themselves faced with a raft of environmental challenges. The ability to receive information from the field and be flexible enough to modify schedules in light of this collected information is crucial if businesses are to succeed in this highly competitive environment. In fact, the author believes that the impact of cost cutting and downsizing can only be survived in this industry if integrated mobile systems are implemented.
The benefits of mobile systems and integration are discussed in the next section.
Benefits
The benefits of mobile systems are well understood. Systems that use wireless, real-time communications deliver significant benefits over those that are disconnected for most of the working day. Figure 1 shows the benefits wedge.
Key benefits (to this paper) in the wireless scenario above are ‘up to date data’ and ‘dynamic re-planning’, both only available with an integrated solution.
A large user of mobile systems in the United Kingdom has reported 15 to 25% efficiency gains in the field and 10 to 15% gains in the office following the successful implementation of mobile systems.
Interestingly, with the exception of gains made by not requiring data entry clerks in the office, a significant gain area is travelling. This includes:
- Not having to return to the office to get replacement (new) work instructions or to provide updates on completed work
- Optimised re-routing of the field workforce in the scheduling/allocation of emergency work
The Way Forward
The way forward is to procure an integrated suite of work management products.
A simple enough statement, but what about advances in technology? Should I buy now or should I wait for the next leading edge gadget to be launched? It might be useful to first take a historical look at mobile systems and their ‘take up’ in the industry:
For at least the last 5 years mobile data has been “about to take off”. Many companies have trialled the technology, but so far adopters have been few and far between. The principle customers have been the emergency services and the transport sector – although recently there has been increasing adoption by the service management industry.
Why has the take up been so slow? This can be traced to several factors:
- The complexity and costs of the solutions
- The lack of an ‘off the shelf’ solution
- Expensive, and often bespoke terminal devices
- A confusion of bearer networks – all with little take-up by customers
- Low bandwidths restricting the possible applications and requiring ‘bespoke’ design skills
- A poor understanding of the cost-benefit equation, particularly set against the high start-up cost
- Perceived, and often justified, high risk – again exacerbated by the complexity of the systems deployed
- The increasing availability of portable consumer orientated computers
- The first models of portable computers with integrated wireless communications – again consumer targeted
- The adoption of the Internet and Internet related technologies as a lingua-franca for computing applications
- The widespread deployment of cellular telephony, offering a simple 9.6 KBPS wireless link in a PC card form factor coupled with a clearer development path to more advanced services becoming available in the not too distant future
Key Utility Requirements
Key to the architectural choice is a recognition that any mission critical field system – such as that required, or believed to be required, by Utilities – needs to cope with the limitations that:
- The application must continue to work in the absence of a wireless link, coverage in utility areas not being ideal
- The bearer, when available, currently offers only a narrow bandwidth, limiting how much data can be sent over the link
However, when selecting a new architecture, it should be noted that not all users may face these limitations. For instance:
Office users will almost always have a good LAN connection – and even a WAN connection typically provides 10 or 100 times more bandwidth than a wireless link. Contractors present too dynamic a population to have software installed every time they are commissioned , and have more limited access needs.
Managers in the field who are occasional users may not be cost justified for a mission critical agent, and may be prepared to trade off a cheaper licence price in return for the occasional lack of access to the system.
As a result, there is a recognised opportunity to develop a true ‘thin client’ to complement the “middleweight” client being developed for mission critical users. The thin client would rely on servlets/applets at the central database/web server to generate conventional web pages to be displayed in any connected browser.
Technical Considerations
Thick vs. Thin
The last year or so has seen a dramatic change in the options available to mobile and wireless system providers. As a result purchasers may find it hard to grasp the relative merits of the systems on offer. Here we present a quick guide to the pros and cons of the two main approaches to field system design.
The traditional approach to wireless system design has been one of “thick client”. This means that the mobile computer contains a relatively large application program and database to display data, provide functionality, store data, and transfer it either in batches (e.g. once a day) or in real-time back to base.
The “thin-client” is now in vogue since it is the foundation of Internet technology. With a thin client, the mobile computer has only a simple browser application (which often comes with the computer itself), and relies on a wireless link to the central computer system to provide functionality and data storage. However, this wireless link does not only need to provide enough bandwidth, it also needs to be available wherever the user is and the user needs to stay connected whilst transferring data in either direction. There are also cost implications when using a circuit switched bearer system where users pay on a time connected basis. Packet switched ‘always on’ systems will hopefully prove more economic.
The table below summarises the advantages of the two options:
| Thick Client | Thin Client |
| Advantages | Advantages |
| •Can use when no wireless link available (e.g. mobile
job card or during disasters/emergencies) •Can operate over lower bandwidths (e.g. those offered by the utility mobile radio systems) •Can offer a richer and more flexible user interface |
•Requires a simpler and possibly cheaper mobile
computer (even consumer devices could be used) •Needs less management as code is centralised •More easily extended to bring in other applications and data sources (e.g. through Internet/Intranet links) |
It can be assumed that the advantages of one are the disadvantages of the other.
Hybrid Approach
Of course the two approaches are not mutually exclusive. The same central system could support thick clients for users who require mission critical field computing (e.g. your core field work-force), and thin clients for those who have less mission critical and more occasional access (e.g. some managers and supervisors). This brings the benefits of a mission critical system but without incurring excessive system costs when rolling out to a large user population. This is the approach taken by my company.
Routes to the Future
No one knows what the future may bring but planned advances in technology will allow users to adopt a hybrid approach to mobile systems moving to the ‘thinner’ end of the client options as wireless bandwidths improve. However, there are many buying strategies available.
Strategies worth examining include:
- Ignore the future, buy for short-payback
- Buy a system which can be upgraded easily
- Buy as advanced a system as possible
- Service Provision
Since the future is so uncertain, there is a good argument for not paying too much attention to it and instead concentrating on putting in quickly a tried and tested system with a short-payback. This will enable benefits to be realized before the system becomes too expensive to support, too uncompetitive, or even discontinued.
Buy and Upgrade
It is attractive to try to plot an intercept course with the future. Implementing a moderately safe system now, but in a sufficiently modular fashion that elements can be swapped out as technologies mature. In doing so we must identify which changes are likely to have the biggest impact on our system, and try to build those in from the start, or skew the system towards them, so that the risk of high cost upgrades is avoided.
Buy for the Future
If all the hype about the Internet and Java is to be believed then it is tempting to think that systems can be built now and incorporate most of the technologies which feature highly in our prediction of the future. Such a system could be browser/Java based, running on Windows CE platforms, and operating on TCP/IP over the cellular telephone network. Future upgrades could be limited to adopting GPRS/UMTS and moving on to Java based terminals. The risk of course is that this is leading edge technology, which firstly may not work, and secondly may not actually be where the future is going.
Service Provision
The assumption so far has been that the user is buying software, hardware and air-time. A possible alternative strategy is to buy only a service. Such an approach insulates the customer from almost all changes, although at a price. Two generic approaches could be adopted. In the first the customer could specify the application, and have the provider move the application around between platforms, bearers and even operating systems. The second approach is to subscribe to essentially a bureau service, with an application being provided which meets the customer’s required functionality, but which may be switched out for an equally effective application at any time. Obviously the risk is now on the service provider, but they should be able to spread costs over a wider client base, and so be better placed to cope with unforeseen changes.
Analysis of the above options undertaken by specialists at Severn Trent Systems indicated that outsourcing wins. The only drawback is that there are not many, if any, companies offering such a service. Perhaps the closest are those companies offering the single integrated solutions, which remove all the systems integration worries from the customer, but whose functionality may not meet the needs of users. However whether these systems remain competitive will be interesting to see, as will whether their providers offer an evolutionary path to take advantage of new technology.
So, in the absence of a generic out-sourcing operation, and despite all the hype, perhaps users would be best just getting on with implementing systems based on the tried and tested technology. They should accept that in the relatively short term they may need a replacement system; but by then they should have made the initial key saving to make the system worthwhile. They can also then capitalise on the emerging technology once it is proven, rather than while it still presents a leading edge risk. For suppliers, it will be those who can provide working solutions today, but who track the new technology in order to provide a relatively painless upgrade or replacement path who will be best placed to satisfy the needs of the user.
The Recommended Approach
Choose a vendor that has:
- An INTEGRATED working solution available today
- A clear development path throughout the whole suite of applications
- One who tracks new technology
- Provides a relatively painless upgrade
- Understands the challenges of the business environment
- Understands the market and technological trends