News
Issue #2002 - 29 (July 2002)
(Updated July 31, 2002)

APPLICATIONS & DEVELOPMENT

Richmond, BC, July 17, 2002 --  The City of Tacoma, Washington State is implementing a wireless workforce management system as a part of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, to be used by more than 200 mobile workers as well as in house staff. 

The ERP, which will be deployed by TUI Consulting, will integrate SAP's mySAP Utilities software and MDSI's Advantex mobile workforce management software, as well as finance and human resources systems. These systems are deployed across multiple City business units, including power, water, cable TV, sanitary sewer, surface water and solid waste utilities, as well as general government. 

The mobile system will automate and manage the work of more than 200 mobile workers, dispatchers and supervisors, will link workers to a full array of SAP solution resources, and will operate over a CDPD network. Advantex will replace a system that includes a patchwork of over 300 databases for scheduling and tracking work crews, where crew managers perform much of their dispatch work manually. 

According to Karen Larkin, City of Tacoma BSIP project director, "This project is the first city-wide effort in strategic planning for mission-critical business systems in Tacoma. In an environment of rising customer expectations and cost control, as well as environmental and regulatory pressures, we want to ensure that Tacoma is responsive, adaptable and customer-focused." 

Advantex schedules service requests and, using business rules, assigns them to the best available mobile resource. The solution wirelessly dispatches work order details to mobile resources who use Advantex to process their work throughout the day, and send status updates and order completion information back to the office. 

MobileInfo Advisory & Comments: This implementation is a variation of a proven field force automation application in so far as it addresses the needs of multiple field service stations within the same system. MDSI has considerable experience in this area.

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