{"id":24,"date":"2015-03-11T19:43:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T00:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/?p=24"},"modified":"2018-06-28T13:15:11","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T18:15:11","slug":"reducing-reliance-on-individuals-in-field-regions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/reducing-reliance-on-individuals-in-field-regions\/","title":{"rendered":"Reducing Reliance on Individuals in Field Regions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post, I said that consolidation reduces costs. But it does more: <strong>consolidation\u00a0eases implementation of systems to reduce dependency on the particular knowledge and experience of key individuals<\/strong>. This is particularly clear in 2 areas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Work Scheduling and Dispatching<\/strong>. Advanced schedulers, such as ClickSoftware, may automatically dispatch field crews based on skillset, equipment and availability, without relying on dispatchers\u2019 particular knowledge and experience, especially for unplanned (emergency) work. In reducing human interventions, dispatchers become supervisors of the overall process, focusing on difficult situations that the system cannot process effectively by itself. In addition to more efficient truck rolls, the number of dispatchers and schedulers (now consolidated) can be reduced.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customer Relationships Management<\/strong> (CRM). Large utilities may have sophisticated Customer Information Systems (CIS) for millions of residential and small commercial and industrials accounts, but there is often no system to manage the hundreds of large commercial, industrial and institutional (CI&amp;I) customers. Therefore, these remain the privy of local resources owning the customer contacts. The lack of rigour in regard to customer contact is probably a contributor to low CI&amp;I customer satisfaction often observed. It would not make sense to implement a large system for a few customers, but a light CRM, such as Salesforce.com, can be cost effective and have a relatively fast implementation time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Full disclosure<\/strong>: My father worked for 25 years as a utility dispatcher. He is long dead now, but I am sure that he would be amazed to see the tools that dispatchers at modern utilities may have now.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top:2em;\">\r\n      Shortlink:\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/reducing-reliance-on-individuals-in-field-regions\/\">https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/reducing-reliance-on-individuals-in-field-regions\/<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"eebsocial\" style=\"margin-top:1em;\">\r\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2F\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/twitter-32.png\" title=\"Tweet this link\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2F\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/facebook-32.png\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=https%3A%2F%2F&title=Reducing Reliance on Individuals in Field Regions\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/linkedin-32.png\" title=\"Share on LinkedIn\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/api.whatsapp.com\/send?text=https%3A%2F%2F\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/whatsapp-32.png\" title=\"Share on WhatsApp\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2F&media=&description=Reducing Reliance on Individuals in Field Regions\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/pinterest-32.png\" title=\"Share on Pinterest\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2F&title=Reducing Reliance on Individuals in Field Regions\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/reddit-32.png\" title=\"Share on Reddit\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/share\/url?url=https%3A%2F%2F&text=Reducing Reliance on Individuals in Field Regions\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/telegram-32.png\" title=\"Share on Telegram\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2F\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/tiktok-32.png\" title=\"Share on TikTok\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2F\" target=\"_blank\">\r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-url-shorten\/\/icons\/instagram-32.png\" title=\"Share on Instagram\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\n    \r\n   \r\n  <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post, I said that consolidation reduces costs. But it does more: consolidation\u00a0eases implementation of systems to reduce dependency on the particular knowledge and experience of key individuals. This is particularly clear in 2 areas: Work Scheduling and Dispatching. Advanced schedulers, such as ClickSoftware, may automatically dispatch field crews based on skillset, equipment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grid-operations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}