How a utility put asset and work management in the hands of 1,000 field workers and eliminated 93% of paper inspections

A large energy provider serving over 1.5 million natural gas customers and 3.3 million electricity customers needed to replace an unsupported asset and work management system covering 5,000 workers and 10 million assets. Agile Brains built the field mobile application and the REST API integrations behind it. Over 1,000 field workers now use it, 96% of beta users rated it five stars, and 93% of paper-based inspections are gone.

The challenge

The legacy solutions were no longer supported, and broader organizational change created an opening to rethink the company's work management future. The utility wanted standardization across its corporate footprint and a solution that would adapt easily to its new service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform. A three-year, plan-driven program was set up to move to an industry-recognized asset and work management suite, and Agile Brains was selected to lead the mobility initiative: a custom omnichannel mobile application supporting the field workforce in the field and in the office.

How we helped

Understanding the field. Working with the Director of IT Work Management Systems, we led the build and testing of RESTful API integrations and a user-centered mobile application for field workers. To understand the nature of field work and build a solution for crews, our UX team built over 100 customer journey maps, critical-to-quality trees, storyboards and user personas.

Data quality. Migrating data on more than 3 million assets, from valves and tunnels to compressors and electric fixtures, exposed data quality issues. We introduced stronger validation at the point of work request creation, which prevented downstream accounting and finance inconsistencies and reduced error frequency, producing better data and more accurate reporting.

Delivery with the end users in the room. Following an agile delivery approach, we ran biweekly sprint demos attended not just by leadership but by the end users themselves. That feedback loop drove a series of enhancements before deployment. In the words of the Director of IT: “The development and deployment of this solution was an extremely smooth process and demonstrates what can be achieved with a strong corporate vision, a dedicated utility workforce, a solution specifically designed for the challenges, and a combined team working together as one, led by an agile solution partner as Agile Brains.”

The result

Over the following 12 months we iteratively developed a smart Forms Office that lets the gas and electric departments create inspections in minutes, with customizable reporting and issue tracking. Field workers report time, inspect assets and submit maintenance requests from the application; an asset and field sketching tool keeps as-built records current; and integration with the back-office Scheduler and crew management portal provides real-time operator qualification checks before inspection and execution. Later features included crew-sourced city-wide parking restrictions, asset detail updates and time reporting.

By the numbers

• 96% of beta field users rated the application five stars at deployment
• 93% of paper-based inspections eliminated across the chosen electric and gas value streams
• Over 1,000 gas and electricity field workers supported by the mobile application and trained on Work Manager, Scheduler and Field Works
• More than 50,000 inspections a year created through the smart Forms Office
• Over 2 million as-built assets updatable through the field sketching tool
• 50+ features delivered after MVP
• 150+ mobility REST APIs underpinning the service-oriented IT architecture