The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts an “above-average” Atlantic hurricane season for 2022. Further, NOAA believes there could be up to 21 named storms this year. This includes three to six hurricanes that might clock in at a Category 3 or higher.
The concept of hurricane preparedness is hardly new for utilities. However, a newer development is the use of technology to track and predict hurricane activity. Technology like field service management software ensures utilities reach peak preparedness before the hurricane season begins in late August. Read on to learn more about why EnSight+ should be the comprehensive field service management software solution your utility uses for hurricane season planning.
When a storm or a major hurricane occurs, emergency calls are inevitable. These can include everything from power outages to downed power lines, malfunctioning infrastructure, fallen debris, and more. When those emergency calls roll in, you’ll want to do what you can to address the problem quickly. Enter EnSight+, with our solution’s ability to streamline dispatch and emergency call response.
Because our solution entails technicians carrying GPS-enabled mobile devices, dispatchers have real-time access to each technician’s location. In an emergency, staff can easily identify which technician would arrive on the scene the fastest and dispatch accordingly.
We just touched on the fact that EnSight+ provides real-time visibility into technicians’ locations. But that’s not the only immediate update our solution can supply to those who need them. Thanks to our embedded work order management module, leadership can receive real-time visibility into work status at all times.
Here’s a quick look at how it works. When a technician is dispatched to a job, they receive a notice of that shift in their daily priorities. As mentioned, leadership can see when the technician arrives on-site. Thanks to the work order management module, you can see how far along the technician is in the process of the task. Once a task is completed, the technician notes it in the system. Leadership can review those notes in real-time. That immediacy can be especially important if task completion triggers the start of a new task and/or updates customers on the status of service restoration.
In sports, they say the best offense is a good defense. In the world of utilities, the best way to reduce the risk of catastrophic problems is to practice preventive maintenance. For example, routinely trimmed vegetation is less likely to cause a problem when a storm does hit. The most significant challenge with preventive maintenance is remembering to schedule and perform it. EnSight+ is designed to help with that.
Our work order management module enables flawless preventive maintenance by allowing staff to schedule repetitive tasks in advance. For example, say your utility handles vegetation control quarterly. You can enter all the related tasks at once and duplicate them as needed. But as we all know, preventive maintenance is more than just vegetation management. The same concept applies to work orders of any type, whether they repeat or not.
The time is now to do your due diligence on hurricane preparedness before peak season strikes. The good news is we can launch our customizable field service management software quickly, and clients don’t need any IT knowledge. To learn more about how our solution can help your utility find efficiencies and operate more effectively — before, during, and after hurricane season — book your demo today.
All monitored by you, in real time. Are you ready to take control?