US Energy Provider Depends on AirLink Raven X For Ideal Mobile Office

Challenges

When one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric system operators launched a work management improvement initiative, the energy provider had goals in three primary areas.
• Safety: Provide visibility to crew and hazard locations, and reduce response to hazardous situations.
• Reliability: Improve restoration response time.
• Financial: Increase productivity and reduce cost of work.

With the electric system operator’s service territory covering six states and over 67,000 square miles, the company faced the challenge of delivering reliable data communications in harsh environments.  Having a solution that is flexible, expandable, and manageable was essential for success.

Solution

Before selecting the Sierra Wireless AirLink PinPoint X rugged in-vehicle platform, the large US energy provider reviewed several other wireless communications devices from leading M2M vendors, but none were as full-featured, easy to deploy, or as rugged as the AirLink device.
The PinPoint X now serves as the communications hub inside the energy provider’s fleet of service trucks, providing field workers with a comprehensive mobile office environment. The intelligent gateway’s persistent broadband connection provides data transfer to hard-mounted, in-vehicle laptops, as well as GPS capability that is integrated with the company’s automatic vehicle location (AVL) database software, powered by Track Star International. The energy provider worked with Sierra Wireless partner Digital Highwayprovider of M2M wireless data solution engineering, integration, and supportto implement both its AirLink and Track Star solutions.
According to Track Star’s President, Michael Hughes, “Integration with Sierra Wireless products has been our smoothest and most complete third-party integration because of the embedded ALEOS intelligence and Remote Access Protocol available in AirLink devices.”

The large US energy provider boiled down the benefits of its AirLink/Track Star mobile workforce management solution into three key areas: safety, reliability, and financial.

• Safety: GPS tracking provides the company with knowledge of crew locations at all times. Not only can the company dispatch more efficiently to reduce road time, but it can also respond quickly to distress calls from field workers in dangerous locations or environmental situations.

• Reliability: More efficient dispatching and service workflow helps the energy provider improve its industry performance for power restoration and customer service.

• Financial: The improved workflow provided by a mobile office environment allows more work to be completed in a shorter period of time or by fewer people, which reduces overtime and contractor costs.

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