Electricity North West

When it comes to the maintenance of electricity substations, clearing weeds probably isn’t the first activity that springs to most people’s minds. So it’s perhaps a surprise to discover that invasive vegetation can threaten the operation of substations both large and small, and that those who keep the weeds at bay aren’t there for aesthetic reasons alone. Far from it. They perform essential maintenance that protects the integrity of our electricity supply network, keeping power flowing to homes and businesses across the UK.

For the Ground Maintenance team at Electricity North West Services (ENWS GM), this is the daily challenge. With responsibility for over 18,000 substations across the North West of England, the busy mobile workforce visits each location at least once if not twice a year, weeding, clearing and spraying to make sure unwanted visitors such as the troublesome Japanese knotweed never manage to take hold.

The challenge

With a team of around 30 operatives based in different locations around the North West, driving from one substation to another is a major part of the job. But planning the optimum routes and the most efficient schedules has always been a challenge – a problem that standard logistics software hasn’t been best placed to solve.

“My two biggest expenses are staff and fuel,” says Peter Raven, the Delivery Manager at ENWS GM. “Our team spend as much time travelling as doing the work,” he continues, explaining that their previous manual scheduling system simply didn’t offer the efficiencies he needed.

“It was all done by ‘line of sight’,” he explains – but just because a substation was the ‘closest’ on a map, that didn’t mean it was the right one to visit. Peter needed a scheduling system with sophisticated routing capabilities plus the ability to allow for the unexpected and unplanned eventualities that are a normal part of the Ground Maintenance day.

“We needed a system that would allow for the team to go and tip off their waste, and would take the maintenance needs of different sites into account, and that could allow for the fact that sometimes people need to visit the doctor or keep a hospital appointment,” says Peter.

In short, the business needed a scheduling system that was a whole lot smarter, which is where Schedule Smart from Triopsis comes in.

Our solution

Schedule Smart is our AI driven scheduling solution designed specifically for the utilities sector. Having already seen “a huge jump forward” when ENWS GM adopted our powerful Triopsis workforce management solution – which did away with inefficient paper-based processes – Peter was keen to put Schedule Smart to the test.

Schedule Smart offers the efficiency I was looking for,” says Peter. “It gives us efficiencies of time and fuel, along with lots of other things that are crucial to the way we work.”

Put simply, Schedule Smart uses the power of AI to deliver highly efficient, optimised schedules that take account of the countless complexities that utilities companies face. At the push of a button – or the click of a touchscreen – the system works out which are the best substations for Peter’s team to visit each day based on a huge number of variables, even taking into account the fact that the operatives need a route that will return them to their homes.

With Schedule Smart, the operatives really are in control.

They get up in the morning and pick their first job,” explains Peter. “The system then works out the substations that are best for them to visit next. They can click into the first one and get routing options with live tracking – avoiding traffic jams and road accidents – and when they get there, they do the work, fill in the job script, send it off and route to the next job.”

But expecting the unexpected is all part of a day’s work for Peter’s team, so
the schedule is never set in stone.

Some days they’re lucky,” says Peter. “They get a list of ten jobs but they need minimal attention and they fly through them by lunchtime. With Schedule Smart, they just hit the button and the system reroutes them again from where they are. Other times, they can’t get access to a site so they abort that job, and Schedule Smart works out their best next step.”

The Triopsis difference

Peter and ENWS GM have long been committed to investing in new tech, and as early adopters of Schedule Smart, they’re already reaping the rewards of our AI-powered system.

There’s definitely been an increase in productivity,” confirms Peter, “and although it’s early days, I’m expecting a saving on fuel costs and other efficiency savings too. What’s really important is that it’s improving the service we provide.”

This improvement isn’t just felt by the business in terms of efficiencies and savings, but also by the Ground Maintenance operatives themselves who appreciate the control and flexibility they now have at their fingertips.

Change can bring with it some resistance,” says Peter, “but although I was expecting a bit of pushback, I haven’t had any. I put a very experienced team member on to trial it, and his feedback to me is, ‘This is good, I like it.’ So what we’re doing now is fine-tuning it based on the team’s feedback.”

Maria Charnock is the Commercial Manager at Triopsis, and she confirms that the operatives’ experience is just as important as the benefits to the business.

We want to give improvements on a business level and a management level,” she says, “but we also want to support the team members who use Schedule Smart every day. The idea of all Triopsis solutions is that they’re designed to make people’s lives better.” Peter agrees.

Facing the future

Creating highly-efficient schedules that are great for both the business and the teams in the field is notoriously difficult to get right – but our AI-driven Schedule Smart system is specifically designed for utilities companies and is more than equal to the task. There’s no equivalent technology on the market, and ENWS GM are already seeing the benefits for themselves.

It’s a good process and a fantastic system,” he says, “and I’m finding working with Triopsis is getting even better as we go along.”

It’s a partnership that’s delivering for everyone – because keeping substations clear of invasive vegetation is a crucial part of keeping the lights on for us all.