Oracle has announced the availability of Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management 2.2 with new enhancements to help electric, gas and water utilities achieve greater operational efficiency by streamlining field crew management and supporting mobile worker safety.
The latest release supports cross-utility collaboration to enable utilities to transform reactive operations managers to proactive ones.
Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management 2.2 provides utilities with flexible scheduling options designed to improve operational efficiency. For example, with new complex, long-cycle work functionality, utilities can
automatically divide jobs spanning many days or weeks into multiple visits, enabling the crew to complete services quickly and accurately.
In addition, the contractor management feature allows utilities to collaborate with contractors to assign work to the most cost-effective blend of labour resources, enabling them to economically balance the workload with contracted labour.
The solution also enables utilities to promote a safe work environment through enhanced safety procedures, vehicle inspections and alerts. For example, utilities can prepare safety routines and vehicle inspection criteria for
each field worker based on the work and vehicle assigned. The solution can also require field workers to complete checklists when starting a new task or prompt the workers through an on-site safety brief.
This functionality helps ensure that field workers follow safety procedures for risk mitigation, helps confirm vehicles are in working order, and supports Department of Transportation and local regulatory compliance.
Further, to improve crew safety, Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management 2.2 enables utilities to use geographic information systems to define the boundaries of sensitive geographic areas and location-based services
to trigger alerts and instruction when a crew enters or leaves that area.
“We worked with Oracle to deploy Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management to improve customer service and field operations. With Oracle’s mobile workforce management solution, customer service is improved
because everyone – from office staff to field staff – knows the status of work. We also significantly improved productivity for field service management, dispatch staff, and field service technicians.
“We expect that with the introduction of MWM 2.2, we will be able to achieve additional efficiencies by streamlining field crew management. We also expect efficiencies because Oracle’s version 2 products have a common technology base,” says Dana Drysdale, vice president of information systems, San Jose Water Company.
“Today’s electric, gas and water utilities are recognizing the need to approach mobile workforce management with end-to-end visibility and control. Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management 2.2 enables utilities to not
only meet those goals but also exceed them by enabling them to simplify field crew assignment processes, monitor work status throughout service areas and improve restoration response times.
“Further, it helps reduce costs and enhance field worker safety. Ultimately, the latest release enables utilities to transform from reactive to truly proactive operations,” says Rodger Smith, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.