If a line crew completes six hours’ worth of work during an eight-hour shift, that’s a very good day. Having the right material and tools for the job before work begins helps maximize wrench time. Efficiently mapping a route for the day’s work also boosts wrench time and trims drive time. Drive time is literally sitting behind the wheel. But figuratively speaking, drive time means spending time on things that get you to the point of doing work.
Let’s say a line coordinator heads to a job site where crews are to construct multiple new poles and a transformer; it’s been two months since the designer initially drew up the job, and, maybe, in the interim, the customer made changes. Now the line coordinator is on site, and he sees a pole won’t work where the design calls for it. Several days of paperwork will change hands. The designer will draw up a new layout. Construction will be on hold while reviewing and approving drawings and, possibly, obtaining new material.
Clearing challenges in a single app
Imagine, instead, that the line coordinator snaps photos with a smartphone or tablet and notes any comments, all in a single application. The coordinator then sends the data directly to the designer’s computer. What may have taken up to four days to turn around with mark-ups and paper now happens in, say, 24 hours. That’s because the designer finishes the changes and sends the updates to the line coordinator and simultaneously updates the material needs with the storeroom. That information is integrated with the crew-scheduling system, so the construction crew gets the job assignment in a digital work order delivered to the working foreman’s tablet or smartphone.
The appeal of field mobility technology
Recently, my employer helped a utility analyze why its managers and crews wanted mobile technologies for scenarios like the one described above. The driving factor: Getting rid of wasted steps and obstacles. For instance, when a crew drives to a new build or a pole location, getting there might require a foreman to log into two or three systems including the GPS application. During our analysis, the utility estimated using a single pane of glass (i.e., one mobile application) to access a work order, communicate with a storeroom, and obtain turn-by-turn directions would save workers approximately two minutes per trip. For a mid-size utility with 1,500 linemen, perhaps 750 of them are using GPS daily. That’s 1,500 minutes per day for each job. Let’s say these linemen are on crews handling three jobs per day, so that adds up to 4,500 minutes daily. Consider those crews work 260 days per year (excluding overtime). They’re collectively spending more than one million minutes annually to get directions from disparate systems instead of tapping a GPS integrated within a digital work order. Integrating navigation isn’t about saving costs per se, rather it’s about spending more time turning a wrench and less time trying to get there.
Another aspect of our analysis looked at how crew foreman could slash the amount of effort they spend tracking time. The utility we were working with estimated its foremen spend up to 2.5 hours per week accounting for and correcting entries on timesheets. With geofencing technology tied into a system for distributing work orders and directions, a working foreman’s mobile device could automatically calculate when his crew leaves the service yard and arrives on a job site. Automatically tracking a crew’s time and location minimizes the effort a foreman puts in to noting travel time, lunch, and trips to the service yard. A solution like that could help a working foreman trim his timekeeping duties to about 20 minutes each week. The foreman can then apply that time mentoring younger lineworkers or supervising work.
Digitizing paper processes, linking technology for working smarter
Whether managers and workers are designing, constructing, or stockpiling and distributing materials, the process at most utilities for managing these tasks generally equals a lot of paper, phone calls, and emails. What if storeroom managers could get early access to what a job requires in the way of materials, so they could place orders for what a design calls for well in advance of a job? And what if a crew was automatically sent the status on these requisitions? The crew could decide whether to begin the job with what’s on hand or direct their efforts in another area. There’s an opportunity for utilities to integrate or link existing technologies (e.g., design systems, work management software, GPS, crew scheduling, etc.) to complete more jobs, more efficiently in a single day. Analyzing processes, reducing extra steps, and linking technologies adds up to less “drive time” and more wrench time.
Jason Rhoades is a customer success manager for ARCOS LLC. Before ARCOS, Rhoades spent nearly 17 years with American Electric Power where his most-recent position was manager of the distribution system for the Columbus (Ohio) District. He began his utility career as a line mechanic with Allegheny Energy. Rhoades graduated with a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University.
