Mobilising the grid

Government-owned corporation Ergon Energy supplies electricity to around 700,000 homes and businesses across nearly 97% of Queensland. The electricity network comprises 150,000 km of power lines across diverse and harsh environments - from the coast to the outback. Field crews are responsible for establishing and maintaining the network, as well as restoring power after disasters, cyclones and floods.

For many years, Ergon Energy has conducted its field operations through manually intensive paper based methods. Work was distributed through a process involving many people and culminating in work dockets being printed out at depots around the state and then handed over to the field crews.

The field crews then travelled to grid locations to fix faults and captured new information from the site on paper. Once the work was completed, paper records were returned to the depot staff to be updated in the central system. The process was time-consuming, and because it was paper based with multiple people involved, it was easier for information to be lost or recorded incorrectly.

Jason Ledbury, Program Director for Field Force Automation, Ergon Energy, said, “As an energy provider we have a responsibility to provide the most efficient services to the community. We also realised there is going to be much more competition in the retail electricity market, driving more customer service work, and with our old processes it would have been difficult for us to scale up without requiring more resources. Therefore, we identified the need to revamp our processes by empowering our workforce with technology.”

Ergon Energy opted to deploy over 500 Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 tablets mounted in vehicles and carried to sites. The Toughpads are already saving workers as much as 45 minutes per day, with the company expecting further efficiencies from the next project phase.

After an extensive field trial, the Toughpad was chosen for both form factor and functionality. The MIL-STD-810G and IP65 certified device is easily vehicle mounted and is light enough to be carried on the field. In some remote areas, Ergon Energy has also adopted the Toughpad’s extended battery which provides up to 20 hours of battery life.

A critical selection factor for Ergon was the ability to safely and securely mount devices in a wide array of vehicles. SPARQ Solutions worked with partners Data#3, Advanced Mobile IT (AMIT) and field crews to develop a mounting solution for each configuration that met strict government safety standards. AMIT delivered nine accredited vehicle configurations and subsequently fitted out around 400 vehicles.

Using 3G and 4G network capabilities, field crews access information from live data to manuals, with improved information flow to and from the field. The adoption has been smooth and the field crews have embraced the Toughpads.

“We have noticed a greater efficiency through optimised processes and are now in a position to cope with a greater volume of work,” added Ledbury.

With the first phase now coming to an end, Ergon Energy will issue more work to the field in line with their Mobility Roadmap over the next five years, and plans to expand its Toughpad fleet accordingly.