Skip to main content

enough already with "big brother"


Hasn't this "big brother" conversation gotten a little bit tired? After the first conversation around this topic in the late 90s, it still amazes me that people are having issues with location-based services enabled on their mobile devices and leveraged in a corporation for field worker efficiency.  I have always personally believed that if you are not doing anything wrong than who really cares?  Location services can be found in many of the applications currently used including apps like WAZE and YELP.  If you are reading this and thinking, I'm concerned about my privacy, then I have one simple suggestion for you, move to the Northern Territory in Canada and lose your telephone. You and those mean ass Moose can  have your own conversations using Dixie cups and a piece of string.   As with many things in 2016 the trick is finding a software partner which cannot only consume, store and understand the data; but most importantly make it relevant to your business.



Let's imagine for a moment all of the fantastic things that GPS enabled devices can get us:

  • intelligent and intuitive routing: a worker is on job site "a" and the work order system understands that they are coming within 15 minutes of completing their current work order. We know where the worker is supposed to be based on the site address, and we can confirm that they actually arrived by comparing that address to their GPS coordinates.  Understanding those two pieces of information and simply comparing it to where open work orders exist within their proximity, we can optimize where they go next
  • I need a part: understanding the physical location it is straightforward and an important input to locate the highest value parts. That is looking at cost, distance to the current worker and the related job site.
  • I'm in here: confined spaces are challenging for anyone, and in many cases receiving GPS from within a site loses its signal as we enter the building.  Yet it is possible to understand when a field worker is operating within a confined space environment and have the most recent coordinates if that worker exceeds their current allotted time.



These are just a few examples of how location-based services operating on a mobile device can the inure to your company and your workers benefit. Put into actions these suggestions and you may discover that that "big brothers" pockets are full of gold.


-----

Next post:  field service an art or a science?

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Speaking AI (artifical intelligence)

You're talking but I can't hear you.   Everyone can certainly understand this condition; the "Peanuts" parents who sounded exactly like your own, your significant other while you watch your favorite game on TV, or most importantly a work colleague or partner which you are attempting to communicate a thought or vision.   All of these, and many other examples, have plagued our organizations long past the childhood game of telephone (passing your words to another, and on to another, etc.).   So what?   What has changed?   Besides the velocity of products hitting the market, the requirements that we have for our business now needs to be interpreted by data scientists, yet another abstraction layer from the field conditions.   Think about this example; TODAY :   we often think in binary terms, if "x" happens do "y" …   take a sales person seeking potential leads by searching a system for the last time we made contact TOMMOR...
Post a Comment
Read more

months to aquire, moments to lose

It is just hard to imagine that one of the most common reasons maintenance contracts are lost is because people don't show up and don't pay attention to the details.   In many cases maintenance is an investment to keep the life of your asset running for a protracted period of time. However the length on many maintenance contracts is not even close to the life expectancy of that equipment, so if you don't really have any idea what maintenance is being performed then how do you really know if it's being done to your specification? Thus, it really boils down to business elements, assuming that you are actually performing the work, our focus needs to be on how you are differentiated. Let's take a look at a couple of the most common business-related reasons why people lose maintenance contracts. Not showing up ; managing contracts can be complicated between the sites, number of assets, and the frequencies at which items need to be maintained, can a...
Post a Comment
Read more

is seeing comprehending?

Oh yeah, visual inspections are why God gave us eyes.   There is not a single machine learning, IoT, computerized environment that can match the skills a human's brain can assess and deliver based on visual feedback. The trick is making sure that the person connected to those eyeballs actually knows what they are looking for!   Face it, aren't the best workers those that can recognize an issue long before it becomes a problem? So instead, is the challenge really not that they can visually see, but instead that they can comprehend and correlate potential challenges? While we have many different definitions for "wisdom" in context of this topic, I think about it as those individuals which have had the most experience, both good and bad. Coincidentally I am a firm believer that the best service people are those that make the most frequent mistakes. When I was in the field I had lots of experience screwing things up. The difference is that I would always check and tri...
Post a Comment
Read more