Indianapolis Water, a USFilter operated utility

Charline M. Avey (Manager, Technical Services, Engineering)

Eric Fowler (Support, Technical Services, Engineering)

Summary:

One of the nation’s largest water utilities has fully implemented a custom mobile work order management system, at minimum cost, using Palm™ handhelds and an off-the-shelf software development tool.  Serving over 260,000 customers in central Indiana, Indianapolis Water (IW) field service workers use Palm devices for hydrant and valve testing and repair, and field service customer work orders. Field personnel with minimal computer experience have gone into 100% production within hours of training using simple, effective solutions deployed on Palm Powered™ handhelds.  Over the past year, field data accuracy has improved, obsolete equipment has been replaced and redundant paperwork has been eliminated.

In Review:

Since 1999, 40 IW employees have used Palm handhelds for field service tasks including equipment inspections and customer service.  More than 260,000 distribution system work orders and 200,000 customer work orders have been processed using mobile applications that extend the enterprise customer service and work order databases. 

The handheld applications were developed and deployed using Pendragon^® Forms and Pendragon Forms Distribution Toolbox from Pendragon Software Corporation.  The Pendragon Forms development platform was chosen because it allows rapid application development, data storage in ODBC data sources including Microsoft Access, and a synchronization conduit for transferring data during HotSync^® operations. Pendragon SyncServer is used for handheld wireless communications, enabling remote synchronization via desktop or Palm modem. Several other applications are used to facilitate the setup of more than 30 Palm V, PalmVx and Palm M505 handhelds.

The completed project included integration with UtiliSuite™, the customer information system developed by Utility Data Corporation, and CASS WORKS^®, the company-wide work order management system developed by RJN Group.  Both systems are stored in Oracle^® 8i databases residing on Microsoft Windows 2000 servers.

Applications:

Distribution Systems,

Hydrant Testing:

Before: IW used Mark Sense cards with a very old card reader that had been out of warranty for several years.  The most recent breakdown required a part to be brought in from Puerto Rico.  In addition to hardware challenges, entering fire hydrant testing data onto paper often resulted in wet, unreadable cards.

After: Palm OS handheld applications are used to collect information for hydrant and valve tests and main flushing operations.  As many as 700 hydrant tests can be loaded on the Palm V’s 2MB of RAM.  The tester collects information during the work day and synchronizes the Palm each evening at a single sync station in the report room. 

During the HotSync operation, completed tests are uploaded to the database and removed from the handheld, and newly assigned tests are added to the device.   The database is located on the LAN allowing managers throughout the organization to schedule work to a specific Palm regardless of synchronization location.

Field service workers can quickly process by work orders by opening the form and adding the requested information.  Calculations, like main flushing water usage based on reading and time, are written into the form design using Pendragon Forms’ powerful scripting capabilities.

Handheld records are synchronized to the desktop database, including the new test/repair transactions.  Devices with wireless connectivity can update the home office database within moments of the event.

Employee training for the Hydrant Testing system was accomplished quickly, even though most workers had little or no computer training prior to receiving a handheld.  Employees participated in a one hour session in-house and then were given handhelds with demo data to use over a weekend.  On Monday, employees received a brief instruction sheet before going on their routes. 

Customer Service,

Customer Non-Payments and UtiliField (field work orders)

Before: An antiquated card reader was being used for customer non-payment work orders. The orders were created each day on a mainframe, given to the service employees on cards and then read by the card reader. 

After:  The UtiliField mobile work order system integrates data from the enterprise customer service and work order information systems to create mobile work orders that can be processed using handheld devices in the field.  Handheld process flow is kept simple by using four forms that contain employee, general work order, customer, and activity information. 

The first form is used to track the date, employee, route name, shift, type of work, beginning mileage, ending mileage and vehicle number.

The next form holds the general information for each work order and provides instructions on what is expected for each order and 12 month listing of meter readings for each account that has a work order on the Palm. 

The customer form provides information about the customer site and serves as the primary data collection form.  Because this form is used for all types of work orders, it contains 90 fields.  Navigation is made easier with jumps created for each of the major sub-groups of service personnel and frequently used data fields.  A single tap jumps to the fields for meter readings, meter installation, or new customer service installation.

Every effort has made to minimize typing on the Palm. Look-up lists facilitate fast and accurate entries. Comment fields are used by the servicemen to communicate additional responses that need to be added to these lists. Keyboards can be used to enter longer responses, and a special mounting board was created for this purpose.

A fourth form tracks the activities servicepersons perform for each order and the conditions that need to be corrected at the customer site.  This information is used to create billable events and referral work orders. 

At the end of each day the serviceperson synchronizes the handheld; the updated work is sent to the database and newly assigned work is downloaded. 

In addition to work orders generated by CASS WORKS Work Order Management System in the home office, work orders records can be added by servicepersons in the field.  After the work order is created in CASS WORKS, information about the customer is routed to the serviceman via pager. The serviceman adds the work order record into the Palm.  During synchronization the handheld record data updates the work order record that resides in the CASS WORKS system using the work order number as the unique key. 

Developing a mobile work order system that was integrated with two enterprise systems presented many challenges.  Requirements included dynamic and easily changeable field response lookup lists including employee lists, work order types, action codes and correct condition codes.  The Pendragon Forms development platform links lookup lists to back-end databases which are automatically updated.

Training for this new system was more extensive due to the increased amount of information collected on the handheld.  The forms were loaded with demo work orders and training sessions were conducted with small groups of less than five service personnel.  Printed documentation was created and included detailed handheld screen captures

Benefits:

Palm handhelds along with information systems integration has had a significant impact IW fieldwork management.  The system has enabled improved information flow, improved information quality, reduced service costs and increased productivity.  No data has been lost through hardware failure and only six units have been replaced because of breakage.

Using Palms for fieldwork processing is saving IW the amount of time represented by three positions in Customer Service and Distribution.  Prior to using handhelds to collect information, clerks or data processing personnel manually updated the database with the data collected on paper. Work order creation and report generation was manual.  Turnaround time of data was days and in some cases weeks.

The handheld system has eliminated lost paper orders and reduced the return trips necessitated by unreadable or incomplete paperwork.  Referral work orders are automatically created for incomplete work or no-time work so that staffing levels can be developed.  The immediate availability of information in a database enables managers to see problem patterns and respond quickly. 

The benefits of this system have paved the way for future expansion. A scheduling management system, onsite activity tracking, enhanced customer communications, and remote connectivity features are being developed and prototyped. 

The additions will provide further communication improvements for customers, managers and employees.  One component will display upcoming work orders scheduled by the call center, a task that would have been impossible using a paper system.  Capturing the servicepersons’ activities while at a customer site as well as the time of day will provide huge benefits including better information for customer calls and requested e-mail status reports.  Field service workers will be able to save time by downloading data at home or on the way to the office.