Empowering Employees 1: Energy Provider

Background

One of the customers that has benefited from using Sogeti’s Windows 8-focused services is an energy provider based in the south of the United States. It employs just over 4,000 people, a large proportion of which are engineers who spend their day travelling to customer sites to check meters, install new equipment or make repairs.

These employees must keep precise records of, among other things, where they have been, work carried out and parts used. However, having to take notes at each site and then remember to copy them into the organization’s database when next at a PC was time-consuming for the engineers, unreliable and error-prone.

Solution

Sogeti developed an application to run on engineers’ mobile devices that would enable them to make their updates directly into the database, even when out in the field. The application runs on ruggedized devices powered by Intel® Core™ i5 processors, which can be used in harsh outdoor conditions and can be attached to an engineer’s equipment belt. It enables an engineer to check all work orders scheduled for the day and, using GPS, to work out the most efficient order in which to travel to them. When a job is completed, the engineer can add all relevant notes to the database.

Results

Internal tests estimate that the application has saved about six weeks’ worth of working time across the entire year, demonstrating the power of the connected workforce in improving productivity and generating cost savings.