MRO – MOBILE WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
often thrown around in wider industry
– is key to completing eld work tasks.
And it is here where mobile workforce
management software can play a
supporting role.
ABOUT
The mobile workforce management
software market is ooded with di erent
companies o ering their own products.
Other names that may be used include
eld service management, job scheduling
software, job management software and
service management. Ultimately, this
software connects eld workers, o ce
sta and customers by automating the
process and replacing manual planning,
information sheets and paper job forms.
Field workers typically use an
electronic device, such as a tablet,
mobile phone or laptop, on which they
can receive their jobs from a control
room or the back o ce while out in the
eld. Processes are then completed
and recorded via the device, with tasks
veri ed as complete when out in the
eld; doing so automatically noti es the
customer and back o ce.
One company o ering such
technology is Leeds-based BigChange. It
launched JobWatch, a mobile workforce
management system, in 2013. The
system was even awarded a Queen’s
Award for Enterprise earlier this year,
which celebrates businesses who excel
at international trade, innovation and
sustainable development
(www.is.gd/bebipo).
JobWatch connects mobile workers,
back o ce sta and customers, providing
a paperless means of planning, managing,
scheduling and tracking operations. The
mobile application o ers several functions
to mobile workers, including jobs and
work ow systems, messaging and
sat-nav, time sheets and expenses and
signature and photo capture
(www.is.gd/ucasaz). The JobWatch O ce
application, meanwhile, enables back
o ce users to create plans and schedules,
live alerts, message and live track, as well
as view reports and performance and
conduct invoicing, among others.
The system is reportedly used by
45,000 mobile workers and back-o ce
personnel at 1,300 organisations across
the globe. One of them is Contego
Environmental Services, a pest control
service. Its CEO Michael Taylor explains:
“Contego started life in 2004 as a oneman
band specialising in bird control
and has grown to become one of the
largest national pest control businesses
in the UK. BigChange has ensured our
operations could keep up with that level
of growth. It gives us complete visibility of
our operations and allows us to manage
our national workforce centrally from our
base in County Durham.”
By Adam O ord
smFlooowthinlyg in the eld
I f there is one word that sums up
2020 so far, it is probably ‘strange’.
Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, o ce
and factory workers went from
going about their normal work lives,
including the daily commute, to working
from home or being furloughed and not
having to leave the house (www.is.gd/
uwuboc). Since then, some have returned
back to their normal working lives, albeit
with social distancing measures in place.
However, not all workers are, or
have been, in such a position. Some job
roles – before, during and after the peak
Coronavirus crisis in the UK – and typically
within the engineering and transport
sectors, require members of sta to travel
from site-to-site to perform jobs roles,
such as maintenance and repair tasks.
Field workers or eld teams, also
sometimes called remote workers or
mobile workers, typically work outside
of the o ce and travel to di erent
locations. An engineer in the power
generation sector, for example, may be
in charge of checking and maintaining
electricity pylons within a certain radius,
while a heating engineer or compressor
specialist may carry out di erent
maintenance and repair jobs at private
and commercial premises within an area.
With such a wide scope of work over
a wide radius, e ciency – a word that is
Operations Engineer explores mobile
workforce management software
and the bene ts that it can bring
to remote workers
76 www.operationsengineer.org.uk Autumn 2020
/bebipo)
/ucasaz)
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/www.operationsengineer.org.uk