For decades, electric utilities have invested millions of dollars in computer technology and human resources to reliably forecast future demand. Reliable forecasting affects long-term planning for infrastructure build-out, staffing, maintenance and repairs, providing executives with a telescope-like view of projected costs, revenues and potential profits.
Advanced technologies such as artificial neural networks and agent-based simulation systems gather information about myriad factors including everything from weather patterns to holidays and massive sporting events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics.
In most cases, utilities have not invested anywhere near the same resources in managing their workforces. That’s going to be an increasing problem as their infrastructures and field technicians continue to age. Power lines, transformers, substations, etc. all wear down and need repair. Those technicians who have accumulated 25-30 years of hands-on knowledge are nearing retirement, and they typically take that expertise with them when they leave.
This article discusses the challenges of workforce management in the electric utilities industry, and the barriers to achieving real efficiency when using archaic systems to schedule their workforces – both internal and third-party contractors. It also discusses the technologies that automate scheduling of installation, maintenance and repair of assets while providing real-time information about technician location and job status.
This technology can also automate customer demand forecasting for short- and long-term projects down the road as well as capacity planning to ensure companies have the right staffing levels to meet the demand. Reporting tools give decision makers vital key performance indicator (KPI) information at their fingertips so they can make smart decisions. Optimizing mobile workforce management will go a long way to help utilities improve overall operational efficiency, cut costs and increase profits as they take steps toward becoming real-time service enterprises.
Complex factors weighing on mobile workforce management
Electric utilities face some of the most complex challenges of any industry when it comes to workforce management. On any given day, field technicians read, install and repair meters, respond to downed power lines or work on long-term infrastructure projects. They may work alone, in a crew, or with a team of outside contractors. Technicians can find themselves at a home, a business, or a substation for a municipality that has a contracted service guarantee.
A single workforce absence can throw entire schedules into disarray, forcing dispatchers to scramble to find additional resources with the necessary skills and experience to get jobs done on time. A shortage of field resources means electric utilities have to do whatever is necessary to complete those jobs, whether that means paying overtime, hiring outside contractors, or both. Then there are the additional industry factors that force utilities to find ways to reduce costs and efficiencies – all ultimately affecting how they manage their workforces. Governments worldwide are increasingly mandating reduced carbon emissions, which presents significant cost, infrastructure and logistics challenges. Commercial customers increasingly demand lower prices, supply security, zero interrupts and higher network capacity while trying to reduce peak usage via demand management and better consumption plans.
The aging workforce coupled with the relatively low numbers of young field technicians joining the ranks should scare any electric utility executive. Here’s why. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, as much as 50 percent of the line worker workforce could retire in the next decade. The largest percentage of the workforce population is in the 45-54-year-old age range, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So when those people who have accumulated three decades of expertise – including everything from remembering part numbers to efficient repair shortcuts not outlined in a manual – leave, that knowledge generally doesn’t transfer to incoming technicians.
The aging infrastructure is also going to demand organized, well-anticipated planning. The more utilities can do to prepare for short- and long-term repairs and replacements, the more efficiently they will complete these projects, minimizing the risk of problems such as unplanned outages. All of these challenges can amount to a big nightmare for utilities still using paper-based or legacy software programs to manage their workforces. Acting on stale data and hunches about where technicians are, the status of jobs, unplanned emergencies and other factors leads to a host of problems, including fewer jobs per day, longer response times and frustrated customers.
Worse still, conducting the trend analyses and demand forecasting to plan for future workforce needs becomes a series of “best guesses” that may prove costly. Trying to project substation installation staffing while ensuring you have enough technicians for other projects without comprehensive data would be like trying to predict the weather using only binoculars.
Automation at work
Electric utilities need to adopt a service optimization approach that simplifies the industry’s inherent complexity. This approach automates and optimizes workforce scheduling and planning for a variety of industry-specific work types – including meter operations, maintenance, construction work, meter reading and emergencies – from a single, centralized application.
This type of service optimization enables electric utilities to better complete routine tasks and maintenance, perform long-term infrastructure work and respond to emergencies while keeping operational costs low and service at contracted levels. More importantly, critical information about where technicians are throughout the day, their job completion rate, etc. becomes available in real time. Managers, dispatchers and field crews can react more quickly to everything from unexpected delays to emergencies to reduce customer service wait times.
Automating scheduling certainly has its benefits: reduced costs; streamlined job management; better real-time visibility of operations; more productive field technicians who spend more time on site than on the road; more on-time arrivals; and faster job completion. Decision support and optimization software relies on agents that constantly “listen” to the stream of incoming information from the entire system; including new emergency jobs, jobs that take longer or shorter than planned, or a technician who is stuck in traffic. The software processes that information against a broad set of variables and business rules such as technician skill set, geographic region, tools on the truck, service level agreements etc. and determines how to keep the schedule continually optimized throughout the day and across the entire enterprise.
Electric utilities using paper-based or simplistic scheduling systems would benefit from a unified schedule that includes anything from simple short tasks to more complex projects that may span over many days require multiple resources and have several stages. Rather than having to work off of different printouts or separate applications, managers have one view of all resources in the field based on job type at any point during the day. Additionally, managers would have crew allocation and management capabilities that aggregate individual technicians into a time-phased crew that is scheduled, so they have more accurate information about which technician is where throughout the day.
Unified scheduling also encompasses managing third-party contractors. Historically, this has been a challenge in any utility industry as contractors typically work to their own schedules more than what the utility tells them. Just as disturbingly, contractors don’t have the access to the complete data, maps, repair history, etc. that the internal workforce uses. Automatically scheduling the contractors and gathering real-time information about their progress is a significant step forward for electric utilities that want to stay profitable and ensure a consistent level of service.
Location-based services incorporating street-level routing (SLR) are another important time management feature set that ensures technicians take the most time-efficient routes to jobs. Online traffic updates automatically send alerts to technicians about accidents or road construction delays so they take faster alternate routes. These schedule optimization tools not only ensure on-time arrivals, they also help maintain high levels of productivity.
Other ways to keep track of technician progress include global positioning systems (GPS) and integration of mobile devices into the system. For example, not only can the system automatically send schedule changes to technicians’ handheld devices or mobile phones in the field, it can also receive schedule “delay” and “jeopardy” alerts that could affect the schedule.
An electronic crystal ball
Companies have invested heavily in developing a system of interlocking technologies, business models and supervisory processes that enables them to automatically and manually balance the future supply and demand of electricity based on kilowatt hours. Utilities should draw on that expertise while incorporating service optimization techniques to balance future supply and demand of field technician expertise measured in “lineman minutes.”
Reliable demand forecasting not only incorporates detailed historical data, it also enables a forecaster to integrate a host of other information – sales and marketing input, meteorological outlooks, strategic organizational decisions, anticipated outcomes of planned business events, etc. – into the forecasting process. This gives the company more of an integrated overview of future customer demand and how it fits into the overall business. Conversely, utilities can use the same information to build a knowledge database about the impacts of various business events on the expected demand. As a result, forecasts become increasingly more accurate. Utilities should also pay close attention to accurate workforce planning based on the demand forecast data. Poor planning can lead to high costs associated with overtime, low utilization and missed service level agreements (SLAs). A good capacity plan ensures that the company has just enough resources with the right skills in a given territory at the right time to provide maximal demand coverage and resource utilization at minimal cost to the organization.
Service optimization technologies can automate gap analyses to help electric utilities identify capacity shortages or overages in a given territory at a given time for a given demand type. These systems facilitate decision-making on how best to close the gap between forecasted demand and current workforce capacity. In doing so, the application considers many factors when determining optimal staffing levels, including defining the optimal skill mix, training programs, temporary and/or permanent relocations, vacations/non-availability, subcontractor usage, overtime usage and expected demand backlog.
Effective capacity planning, along with increased training programs, can help electric utilities alleviate the impact of the aging workforce. With reliable demand forecasting and workforce planning, utilities can anticipate periods of high turnover (as experienced technicians leave the company) and schedule long-term projects before or after that period. Doing so helps power companies adapt to the change and ensure customers don’t “feel” any impact.
Business intelligence
Electric utilities have no shortage of data. But that data is only valuable to them if they can quickly interpret it for more effective decision making. Reporting applications that allow managers to capture, analyze and present the data in the manner that makes sense to them and their shareholders are critical to gaining a comprehensive view of the overall business. KPIs ranging from the average number of jobs per technician per day to emergency response time averages are crucial in determining how to manage schedules and technicians.
The market is filled with complicated reporting tools that require database administrators to operate. Utility managers need mouseclick access to the information that is important to them. They also need easy drilldown capabilities to see activity based on territory, time, customer and field resources. Some reporting tools provide executive-level business monitoring tools that let decision-makers see dashboard displays of real-time critical information about costs, service levels and utilization performance in easy-to-read graphics. When a specified KPI exceeds acceptable service level thresholds, the system immediately alerts executives so they can drill down to pinpoint specific problem areas and business units. With this information, they are able to quickly take corrective actions across relevant business units in the organization.
The real-time enterprise
Electric companies still using paper-based or static, map-based legacy workforce scheduling systems should consider taking steps to becoming real-time service enterprises. Just as they’ve invested in ensuring a balance of kilowatt hour supply and demand, they need to invest in managing the supply and demand of their field technicians’ time on the job. Automated mobile workforce management and service optimization is fast becoming a competitive advantage that lets power companies more accurately anticipate how countless variables unique to the industry will affect future projects… and the business as a whole. Adopting these strategies will help lower costs, boost technician productivity, increase profits and deliver on their promises to customers.
About the Author
Dr. Moshe BenBassat is the CEO and founder of ClickSoftware. Dr. BenBassat continues his professorial role by teaching the service industry how to better manage field workforces, reduce costs, increase revenues and keep customers happy. He launched ClickSoftware in 1997 to provide utilities, telcos and other service organizations with technology that automated their time-consuming, manual scheduling and workforce optimization processes. He realized that these companies could make field technicians more productive and be more responsive if they could better control what he calls the W6 — Who does What, Where, When and With What tools?
BenBassat earned doctorate, master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and statistics from Tel Aviv University.
