GEDigital Energy

Company ProfileCustomer: Bristol Water

Web site: bristolwater.co.uk

Number of employees: 516

Country: United Kingdom

Industry: Utilities

History: Founded in 1846, Bristol Water originally operated asBristol Waterworks Company. It runs 18 treatment works, 140reservoirs, and gets most of its water from the Mendip Hills,which are south of Bristol, and the River Severn.

The SituationThe field workers at Bristol Water used to rely on manual

processes to plan, schedule, and complete their daily tasks. For

over a year, this created mountains of paperwork and many

overheads, including the physical expense of supplying and

transporting paper and the business cost of lengthy data

processing. By working with Vodafone to implement a mobile

workforce management solution, Bristol Water has turned the

situation around dramatically. In total, 80 paper forms have

been eliminated and replaced with a mobile application. Work

scheduling and basic management tasks are now fully automated,

increasing productivity up to 40 percent in some roles and

administration is nearly 25 percent more efficient.

The ChallengeBristol Water serves more than one million homes in southwest

England. Each day the company produces around 300 million

liters of clean drinking water and pumps it through 6,600 kilometers

of pipe work to households and businesses, receiving high praise

from the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) for its

excellent customer service. With cost reductions on the agenda,

the company wanted to increase efficiencies across all departments.

Apart from cutting overheads, the move would help deliver even

greater levels of service. A review of working practices revealed

that gains were possible by automating many of the management

processes for field workers. The systems were generating millions

of pieces of paper every year, all of which had to be passed by

hand through different departments, uploaded onto computers,

and filed away in cabinets. However, with Bristol Water’s well-

established working practices, introducing new automated

systems would be a challenge.

Field Force AutomationSolution for Bristol Water Case Study

The SolutionBristol Water approached GE Energy to run a pilot program of its

Field Force Automation (FFA) system. The company recommended

Vodafone as its preferred implementation partner. The customer-

facing network department, which is responsible for all aspects

of the distribution of water, was the first group to switch over to

the workforce management solution. It was followed six months

later by the other departments involved in water treatment and

sampling. Instead of using pen and paper, employees now have

laptops delivering resource planning, work scheduling, process

management applications, and GPS location services across the

network. The FFA solution integrated securely with the company’s

SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer

Relationship Management (CRM) systems, plus the Laboratory

Information Management System. Vodafone played a key role

in transitioning employees to the new system. Adoption was

successful thanks to a series of workshops and training sessions

that were held before the “go-live” date, which demonstrated how

their world of work was changing. In fact, Bristol Water issued a

regular newsletter to keep employees informed on its progress.

Today, employees receive their work orders for the day via their

laptops. The devices are wirelessly connected through the network

to the ERP, CRM, and administration systems at Bristol Water so

administrators can track order acceptance, current status, and

estimated time for completion.

Features and Benefits• Bristol Water has streamlined over 30 manual processes and

80 paper forms.

• Better scheduling ensures workers can fit up to 40 percent

more water meters per day.

• With management data transferred directly to back-end

systems over the network, administration is now between

20 and 25 percent more efficient.

• Bristol Water saved 2.3 million pieces of paper within the

first nine months of deployment, reducing the company’s

environmental impact.

• Data is transferred reliably across the network, ensuring

real-time connectivity.

• Flexible technology enables Bristol Water to easily configure

the management system for various jobs. It also ensures

the company can scale more easily for changing business

requirements.

• Bristol Water personnel have access to the right data, in the

right place, at the right time to deliver a more responsive

service to customers.

• The company has a scalable management platform to extend

to other work groups, including contractors, etc.

Additional Benefits• Greater efficiency• Higher productivity• Reduced administration• Lower carbon footprint• Secure connectivity• Flexible technology• Increased responsiveness• Excellent scalability• Successful partnership

To learn more about this offering, contact your GE sale

representative or visit www.GEDigitalEnergy.com

GEA17835 (08/09)

Case Study