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34 | DECEMBER 2020 | UTILITY WEEK Operational Excellence Analysis Field forces get digital Asset-heavy utilities are equipping their remote workers with the technology, skills and support to transform their operational efficiency. Denise Chevin reports. T he lasting impact of the pandemic is being felt in all corners of utility opera- tions. The move for some staff from office to spare room might appear the most obvious shi, but those out in the field have also seen employment habits reshaped . These armies of key workers who con- tinue to keep services running during lockdown – linesmen, jointers, repair and maintenance crews and water network oper- atives – have also had to take on board new working practices overnight. At the physical level, that's involved splitting up from work partners and driving around in singly occu- pied vans, social distancing on site, and applying new practices when visiting homes. But it's also been a transformative time where we've seen an acceleration in the adoption of technology. Some companies were already well down the path of having apps on smartphones, toughbooks or rugged tablets to receive schedules, record job particulars, trans- fer information from field to site, and other related tasks. But even these have seen an acceleration in digital processes. The daily visits to the depot have been replaced with video calls from team managers while online training workshops and resources have become more readily accessible in bite-sized chunks from smart devices. Scottish and Southern Electricity Net- works is one organisation where the pan- demic has propelled technology uptake. SSE has a field staff of about 1,500 from a total staff of 3,300 in central southern England and northern Scotland. Field roles are varied but involve mending overhead lines, under- ground cables, substation faults, restoring supplies and maintaining assets. Mark Rough, director of customer opera- tions at SSEN, explains: "Over the past three years we've equipped 2,500 workers with smartphones and provided rugged tablets to 1,000. Getting the right technology in the hands of our frontline teams was key, but it was only part of the puzzle. I would say that in the last 4-5 months the key shi is that we have really accelerated digital processes and embedded them into our ways of working." The upshot, says Rough, is increased productivity and customer satisfaction, and fewer cancellations of work in the field. The biggest part of the digital rollout for SSEN has been the adoption of what Rough terms regional operating models. This has involved scheduling the location of jobs centrally and pushing them out to the field force. This move has been coupled with the development of easy-to-use soware for reporting outcomes. "We've created standardised forms so that the right information can be fed into reg- ulatory reporting," he says. "Workers can fill in a time sheet on line, so there is no need to check into the depot. By standardising forms and making it easy to use the apps the new system has been well received." Rough says the workforce has accepted the technology readily: "Most people use some of the technology already in their pri- vate lives so are used to the process, and where there has been follow up support required, we've delivering that. We recog- nised early on that trust is key to adoption. "If we hadn't invested in those types of tools, then dealing with Covid-19 would have been a more challenging place." While SSEN's adoption of technology in the field has gathered pace in the wake of Covid, other companies have been on the same trajectory, as the pressure has mounted to increase efficiencies and improve cus- tomer satisfaction. "These days we are looking to recruit those who are comfortable working with cus- tomers and who are competent and capable