The Managing Director of Sydney Water Corporation has announced the successful development and deployment of their $20M FRM mobile field workforce system:

Technology upgrade to improve response times

Sydney Water will improve its maintenance by using a new computer-based scheduling system that allows its civil, mechanical and electrical maintenance crews to receive job requests via portable computers while they are working in the field.

Managing Director Kerry Schott said Sydney Water had spent nearly $20 million installing a new scheduling system and allocating laptop computers designed for outdoor use to over 400 field crews, scheduling and management staff.

“This is one of the biggest technology upgrades Sydney Water has implemented in over five years and we expect it to significantly assist maintenance crews in their response to jobs across the Sydney Water network,” Dr Schott said.

“The new system will save both time and money by getting the right crews to the right jobs at the right time.

Schedulers can identify available crews with the appropriate equipment and expertise to respond to jobs. This means that the need to return to the depot for additional equipment and materials can be reduced.

Schedulers will use the new technology to allocate crews to jobs more efficiently based on their current location, job progress and the location and priority of other jobs.

The new system will also reduce paperwork and improve the accuracy of our databases by allowing staff to update electronic records while they are on site.

The annual cost saving to Sydney Water may be up to several million dollars annually if all goes well, and this productivity improvement is a good step forward for all maintenance crews and schedulers.

The next stage of this technology upgrade will enable staff to access updated safety information, work instructions and network maps from their portable computers.

Sydney Water undertook an extensive staff consultation process before implementing the new system.

Over the past six months we have trained over 500 scheduling and maintenance staff to use the new system, including some who had never used a computer before.”

Read about how we helped Sydney Water design and deliver their FRM - Field Work Force System…..