New Handhelds Improve Worker Productivity

United Utilities (Warrington, England) is the largest multi-utility business in the United Kingdom. The company operates and maintains electricity and water distribution networks in northwest England, delivering electricity to 2.2 million customers and water to 2.9 million premises. The company recently found itself in need of IT changes. The UK government was deregulating the electricity industry and opening it up to new competition. As part of the move to deregulation, the government legislated that each service provider have its own independent, or discrete, IT system in place. The legislation was intended to ensure a level playing field for existing firms and new entrants in the industry.

Legislation Requires New IT System
At the time the new legislation was enacted, United Utilities had a shared system among its different electricity business divisions. These divisions used the same IT system to manage meter reading portfolios and schedules, distribution activities, supply billing, and meter operators' schedules. Under the new legislation, United Utilities was required to move to a system that would manage each division independently.

A large IT consulting company designed the system United Utilities had been using. Although the system change was required by law, the IT folks at United had no problem with changing its infrastructure to meet the requirements. "The system we were using was put in place to meet the requirements of several divisions," says Steven Bradwell, systems support manager at United Utilities. "But, the system did not succeed in entirely meeting the specific needs of any of the divisions."

Rugged Handhelds Are More Cost Efficient
A major component of the new system was replacing existing Telxon serial-interface handheld products for the utility workers in the field. United Utilities wanted a similarly rugged device, but one which provided a more integrated communication method. The company looked at four or five different handheld products. One of the key considerations for the company was the cost of ownership over a five-year period. "We found that, although the non-rugged devices were 1/3 the cost of the rugged devices, they would not last nearly as long," says Bradwell. "We learned the non-rugged devices would have to be replaced four or five times as often as the rugged ones. We felt it was more cost-effective to go with a rugged device."

Of the rugged products United looked at, the one it decided on was the netpad from Psion Teklogix. Employees liked the VGA (video graphics array) screen on the netpad, but the feature they liked most was the lack of a keyboard. "Field workers go to customer sites to change meters, not input data," states Bradwell. "The application running on the netpad was designed by Wheatley Associates and uses drop-down menus, pick lists, and check boxes. This eliminates the need for a keyboard and lets field workers do their jobs faster. It also reduces the potential for data entry errors."

GPRS Saves Time, Increases Accuracy
For the system architecture, United Utilities originally started off wanting to use the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), a mobile phone communication protocol. However, at the last minute General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), a more advanced standard, came along. United Utilities decided to go with that technology instead. One of the biggest challenges the company faced was acquiring mobile phones that were GPRS- enabled, as well as getting a reliable GPRS service infrastructure in place.

"One of the benefits of having GPRS connectivity is it is very easy for us to issue emergency work or reallocate work," says Bradwell. "Prior to implementing this solution, emergency or reallocated work would have to be issued by mobile phone. The field worker would have to take the information down on paper and input it on a manual worksheet. The worksheet would then have to be manually entered into the system. The process often resulted in input transposition errors." United has since seen an improvement in the throughput of the work, as well as improvement in the quality of data being transferred through the system. Because the system is a dedicated system for all meter operators, information flows through the system, out to suppliers and data collectors, a lot faster. In fact, mobile workers can now complete 12 meter changes a day, when previously they were completing only 10.

Train Workers To Operate More Efficiently
The entire project cost £3.5 million ($5.4 million), including hardware, software, the Psion Teklogix netpads, data conversion, and training. Field users were already used to using handheld units to capture information, which cut down on the required training. "The main thing was getting the field staff to remember they could update the database on the go," says Bradwell. "The handheld devices we had been using were 'dumb' units and had to be docked in an RS-232 port each morning so the day's work could be downloaded. When we deployed the netpads with the RF [radio frequency] connectivity built in, the staff sometimes had a hard time remembering they could update on the fly without having to dock."

The entire installation took approximately one year. The project had the potential to be completed much sooner, but to migrate the data and make the physical switch to netpads, United had to wait for an off-peak time. There are only two off-peak times during the year - Easter and the Christmas/New Year's period. The company waited until December to perform the rollout.

Not only have the netpads made the work easier and put United in compliance with the new regulation, they have also led to additional business. "Due to the operational improvements of the new system, we successfully bid for a multi-utility metering contract with British Gas valued at £250 million [$390 million] over five years," says Bradwell. "When we made our proposal to British Gas, we already had our new system up and running. Our competitors did not, and that is one of the key reasons why we won the contract."