Mentor Engineering Mobile Workforce Management

30 April 2009, 9:47am

CALGARY, AB - April 30, 2009 - Keystone Excavating Ltd., of Calgary, Alberta, has implemented Mentor Engineering’s mobile workforce management solution to manage over 250-pieces of heavy equipment. With this automated system, they have been able to streamline job costing, billing, and timesheet management. In addition, the return on investment has been one year, instead of the expected three.

According to Holly Goulard, Controller at Keystone, one of the biggest benefits of this system is the ability to capture real-time information. “We see real-time hours and know where every piece of equipment is. Our HR department knows who worked when and can verify that information. We’ve gone from having two people whose full-time job was reviewing job codes and hours worked, to this being only one part of one person’s job.”

The mobile workforce management solution includes Mentor Ranger® computers in the vehicles, and Mentor Streets® Enterprise software in supervisor vehicles and at head office. Also at head office is HandySoft’s BizFlow business process management software.

With Ranger, field worker login time is electronically captured, improving payroll accuracy. New job assignments are sent by Streets to the appropriate vehicle where they are displayed on Ranger. Field workers also use Ranger to receive job-related instruction, and enter equipment codes at the start of each job for more accurate billing. Ranger then alerts them when to move to a different job site, speeding the transition.

Using the Mentor Streets reporting tool, Keystone can review historical data to identify things like unnecessary vehicle idling and speeding, helping to minimize behaviors that cause excess fuel consumption.

When deciding on this system, Keystone estimated that it would enable field workers to get to their next job 20 minutes earlier. In reality, Holly believes the system is exceeding this number. As well, Keystone has been able to downsize its scheduler staffing requirements. Before this technology, schedulers would receive calls from field workers to verify jobs, times, and locations. Now supervisors handle most of this work remotely, and four full-time scheduler jobs have been removed.

Mobile workforce management technology is helping Keystone streamline its operations and minimize staffing requirements in order to remain competitive, regardless of the economic climate.

Mentor Engineering

Geo: International