CEO and Founder of InterPro Solutionsoffering a suite of award-winning mobile Ops & Maintenance apps designed exclusively for IBM Maximo.
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I think most leaders of organizations with large physical plants—which can range from power generation facilities and water authorities to mining operations and more—understand the basic ROI from implementing a mobile solution for their operations and maintenance (O&M) teams: elimination of paper and labor savings
The Basic ROI
Eliminating paper seems obvious—there is no longer a need to purchase the paper forms O&M teams use to issue work orders and capture work details. Beyond the cost of the forms, there are also additional savings from eliminating the need to handle and store that paper and the completed work orders.
Labor savings are pretty straightforward as well. If you issue work orders electronically to a mobile app, the need for central office data entry is eliminated. Technicians no longer need to travel to the dispatch office to collect their assignments.
Perhaps less obviously, many organizations can also benefit from the enhanced emergency preparedness/disaster recovery (DR) capabilities. First and foremost, the organization now has the ability to communicate efficiently with O&M employees.
Drilling, or running disaster simulations, is also enhanced. Mobile makes it easy to run simulations with specific teams at specific times, and transforms the drill from a tabletop exercise to a field exercise.
The Cultural ROI
In my experience as the founder of a mobile solution company, what’s typically overlooked during rollout is what I call the cultural ROI. If “going mobile” is justified simply on financial benefits or enhanced emergency preparedness, leaders likely haven’t thought through the cultural implications that stem from mobile adoption.
If you’re in a capital-intensive business requiring a large physical plant, there are often well-founded fears that a competitor can leapfrog your company by building a more modern facility. Anyone who has studied the decline of the US steel industry understands what happened when highly efficient steel mini-mills entered the market and were able to produce a ton of steel with 1.5 man-hours, a significant reduction from the 10.1 man-hours required by larger, aging mills.
Moving to mobile can signal a move to modernization and allay fears that the business might be eclipsed by more efficient competitors. It can also inspire confidence in management. Many organizations are guilty of undertaking initiatives that result in little tangible change; I am sure many of us have lived through various “employee engagement” or “business of tomorrow” exercises that sucked up a lot of time and effort but did not lead to lasting change. Investing in mobile can truly make a technician’s day-to-day job easier.
And when you make someone’s job easier, job satisfaction may rise. Moreover, you’ve enabled your techs to grow their skills—allowing them to keep pace with what’s being taught in schools. No one wants to feel their skills are (or will soon be) outdated. I’ve noticed that satisfied employees who are able to keep their skills current tend to stay with their organization, an important consideration when skilled technicians are in demand.
Getting Started With A Mobile Solution
So how can businesses get started with mobile? The first step is for leaders to talk to the technicians themselves. Make it clear that the primary objective is to make their jobs easier. Let them identify the “quick win” processes where mobile could make a positive impact on their jobs.
In these meetings, be prepared to respond to their concerns, and be honest about the challenges that might come up. Don’t be surprised if some employees lack experience with a mobile device. Giving them the device long before rollout and pairing them with a born-digital co-worker can help assuage their fears. Others may raise concerns that they’ll be tracked or monitored, so make sure you have a Digital Use Policy in place that lets employees know what’s expected of them while they’re actively working. Demonstrate how they can disable location tracking at any time—I’ve found this can instantly build trust.
Assure employees that they’ll have a chance to provide feedback at every step of the mobile journey. If what’s delivered from IT (or your mobile vendor) doesn’t align with the way they do their work, be prepared to make changes before they’re expected to use it—remember, the objective is to make their jobs easier!
Finally, make a commitment to ongoing evolution and improvement. I’ve noticed the organizations that are most successful with mobile are those that are constantly adding new features and capabilities.
Measuring Cultural ROI For Continued Improvements
So how do we measure cultural ROI? It’s not quite as black and white as adding up the cost savings. You might see some evidence in metrics such as staff turnover rates, but for the most part, you have to ask employees.
Before starting your mobile journey, conduct a baseline survey. How easy is it to execute task x, y or z? What’s the level of satisfaction with how work is assigned and scheduled? How easy is it to modify a schedule or self-initiate an add-on work order when a job turns out to be more complex than the scheduler thought it would be? Ask about compliance with health, safety and environmental (HSE) requirements—how easy is it to do an on-site inspection of safety gear? Are there challenges getting sign-offs for projects with HSE considerations? Do you have the safety gear you need to do the job? Use the answers to these questions as your baseline for assessing job satisfaction and complexity.
Shortly after your rollout, run a follow-up survey. You’ll not only measure improvement over the baseline, but you’ll also uncover areas for improvement with the app or where training fell short. Incorporate that feedback into the next release (or next training session) and show that once again, management delivered something better.
Re-run the survey after six months to make sure all the kinks have been worked out, and at least annually thereafter. If the organization is committed to modernization, the surveys are tangible evidence that it actively seeks input from the employees, is committed to keeping their skills up to date, and, by making their jobs easier, remains competitive in its industry.
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