Modernizing Field Service Operations at a United States Utility Provider
What we achieved
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Reduced
downtime and lowered costs
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Maintained
continuity of service
-
Backend
functions to be instantaneous
To who
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Industry: Utility
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Products: HCL Volt MX
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Region: North America
Overview
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Part 1
Challenge
Prior to their digital transformation, a U.S. State Utility Provider struggled with inefficiencies leading to errors from manual processes in work order management.
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Part 2
Solution
Leveraging HCL Volt MX, the team swiftly developed an application in less than 3 weeks, utilizing an industry template customized to their specific requirements.
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Part 3
Results
A work order management mobile application integrated with SAP service management, providing instant turnaround times compared to the previous week-long process.
The Challenge
Reliant on paper-oriented processes
As the largest water provider in its state, this organization serves more than 1.4 million residents and manages critical infrastructure spanning water, wastewater, and solid waste services.
Their field teams are responsible for the essential maintenance of the community, from installing Advanced Meter Registry (AMR) systems to managing residential and bulky waste collection. Despite the scale of these operations, the utility’s reliance on paper-based processes created a significant hurdle in modernizing their tech stack and improving operational efficiency.
Before modernizing, the organization’s field technicians were required to drive to a central office every morning to collect stacks of paper work orders, then returning at the end of the day to hand over completed and pending forms.
Because of this constant back and forth, the average turnaround time for a service order was one week. With technicians handling roughly 1200 water work orders and 300 solid waste orders every day, the manual process led to frequent errors and general inefficiencies.
The Solution
Going digital with Volt MX
To modernize their field operations, the provider partnered with HCLSoftware to develop a mobile application designed to replace paper entirely. By using HCL Volt MX and an industry specific template, the team swiftly built the application in less than three weeks. This approach allowed them to customize features to their unique operational needs.
The heart of innovation lies in Volt Foundry, which acted as an integration accelerator. By connecting directly with the organization’s SAP service management module, the system automates complex business tasks and fetches the latest work order data in a regular schedule to keep information current. The “plug-and-play” backend experience, utilizing object services, bypassed the need for building integrations from scratch, significantly reducing deployment costs and ensuring a seamless process.
Now, field teams use a digital tool that manages the heavy lifting. Deployed on Volt MX Cloud (powered by AWS), the solution aligns with the provider’s cloud first initiative, offering a consumption based architecture that scales alongside their digital transformation.
The Results
Instant turnaround
The utility transformed its operations by moving to a mobile first approach. By using Volt MX to develop a custom app, the team integrated directly with SAP service management. This digital shift turned a week-long work order process into an instant turnaround. Because the app automates backend tasks based on field activity, technicians no longer deal with manual paperwork or slow data entry.
The new system cut costs and reduced downtime while giving leadership better visibility into field activities. Moving to the RISE (Remote Infrastructure and Software Environment) also provided cost assurance and kept the migration secure and compliant. By choosing a scalable low-code platform, the utility didn’t just fix its current speed issues, it built a foundation that can grow and adapt as its needs change.
About the company
This organization is the largest provider of drinking water in their midwestern state. In addition to water services, they also provide wastewater and trash collection services across the state. Committed to delivering outstanding services efficiently and professionally, they continue to innovate and embrace digital transformation to meet the needs of their customers and community.
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