Managing the Divergence of Engineering and Field Operations

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1 By Laurie Spiegel, 19 August Managing the Divergence of Engineering and Field Operations Thirty years ago, engineers worked alongside field personnel at the field office. Outside plant design engineers collaborated closely with construction managers and field technicians. They shared information, discussed plant needs and worked together on changes to plans. They could talk over coffee, hop into a truck to visit a site and make decisions in real time.

2 This completely changed in the age of electronic information. With modern systems used to plan and document network changes, Engineering has become more centralized. Furthering the divergence, field work is now often outsourced. As a result, s of field prints and engineering instructions have become the best vehicle for conveying information to the field. These methods have proved inadequate. There is a growing information and communications gap between Engineering and the field office, resulting in more delays, errors and wasted capital during network builds. Telecom operators cannot afford to let this situation continue, either financially or in terms of meeting competitive and customer demands. A better form of communication is needed to get instructions and information to and from the field.

3 A technological go-between Nearly all field managers and workers now carry laptops or tablets that allow them to connect to the Internet. So, theoretically, they could connect directly to provisioning or engineering software to streamline the flow of information. Unfortunately, this is not practical. Engineering tools are designed with complexities that only engineers want or need. Much of the software s capabilities and wide variety of drop-down menus are of no use to field personnel. Besides, the complexity of these engineering applications would require special training and months of usage before field personnel could use them productively. This is simply not realistic in today s environment, especially when outsourced contractors are involved. The key to solving this problem is an interface that provides field managers and crews with direct access to the specific network information they actually need, in a simplified manner that requires little training. This intermediary interface pairs workflow components that the field force is used to with the engineering designs and objectives that need to be accomplished. With broad availability of the Internet, an easy-to-access portal brings an intuitive, straightforward navigation scheme to the delivery of work orders in the field. Working seamlessly with the existing engineering software, it creates a new avenue of two-way communication between field teams and Engineering. Field workers receive information and instructions, and cascade back realworld revisions. After validation by Engineering, these changes can be directly posted to the inventory source of record.

4 Improving information granularity Each work order developed via engineering software presents a comprehensive list of needed work for a particular project. Some work orders may be massive construction projects lasting months; others may be small jobs lasting only a couple of days. But projects are typically tracked as a whole. They are visible as being done or not done, with little or no granularity of information about the actual progress in the field. A field portal can be leveraged to increase that granularity, for improved decision making. When work is presented as a series of individual tasks, managers can easily match tasks with the best qualified workers. As the work is completed, workers can simply check off each task. Everyone can monitor project progress and the organization realizes immediate benefits. As an example, let s say that a work order is issued for enabling service at 50 locations. The first 25 are completed on time, but the next 25 have a permitting problem. Previously, the work order would show as under construction, and service to all 50 locations would be delayed. With a deeper level of progress granularity, decision makers would see that service to the completed 25 locations could begin. Service would then be delayed only to those locations affected by the problem.

5 More accurate records A common practice is for the field to mark changes to the paper plan in red pencil, called redlining. When all the work is completed, they either deliver the redlined paper document back to Engineering or scan it and send it as an attachment. It is often months before the information is added to the network design record, if ever, since collecting and updating data has a much lower priority than efforts that contribute to generating revenue. A field portal, in contrast, lets field technicians make changes to the design itself, which the engineer sees in real time. Collaborating with the field, the engineer can accept or modify changes and immediately post them to the production database. Similarly, if field workers encounter anything in the network that does not match information in the record, they can notify Engineering so the record is changed to reflect reality. Testing activities, such as node qualification or Optical Time Domain Reflector (OTDR) snapshots, show how the plan was implemented and how it s performing. This information is collected to validate the plan at the time of implementation, and is also used in downstream operations such as provisioning and assurance. Via the portal, field personnel can easily attach these test documents to the work order for storage in the permanent repository. This eliminates the need to the results to the engineer, who would then have to file it and/or post it to a share drive for use by others such as the Network Operations Center. By having the test documentation attached to the work order, it always remains linked to the plant item, eliminating the frustration that goes with missing or misfiled documents. The need to retest is thus eliminated, as well.

6 Bringing field teams into the 21st century A portal-based tool expressly developed for field teams is long overdue. In today s diverged world, it gives managers the capability to organize and distribute work to individuals, and eliminates paper records that can be damaged or lost in the field. Workers see what tasks they ve been assigned on any given day and can instantaneously view the related connectivity and equipment information they need to complete the job. Project progress is better tracked, records are up-to-date and accurate, and delays, build errors and waste are all minimized. Technology has brought improved efficiency and effectiveness to almost every part of the operator s organization. That same level of improvement can now be brought to teams working in the field. Learn more about bringing engineering and field operations closer together. About the authors Laurie Spiegel Laurie Spiegel is Product Marketing Director of Operations Support Systems at Ericsson, focused on leadto-cash software solutions for greater service agility. Her expertise in technology, operations, and systems comes from her many years leading consulting engagements and helping clients develop, assess, and execute new strategies such as automating processes to support next-gen broadband services. Ericsson 2015