Gas Utility Saves Time, Resources with Android Tablet Solution
With natural gas production reaching record highs, gas utilities are responsible for transmission and distribution of ever-increasing amounts of this valuable resource. In order to ensure safe and efficient operations, these utilities must have field workers who are connected at all times, and can capably and quickly address issues they face on the ground.
Natural gas utility Enerya serves nine cities in Turkey, powering more than 700,000 subscribers with more than one billion cubic meters of gas. As the importance of a field force increased in recent years, Enerya, prioritizing customer satisfaction, needed a field force that took full advantage of today’s mobile technology.
Prior to March 2013, Enerya’s internal processes were mostly manual and paper-driven, and were often time-consuming and ripe for improvement. For work orders alone, Enerya’s procedure involved a seven-step process: list preparation; work order release; delivery to the team; process finalization; form printout; delivery to the central office; system processing.
In March 2013, Enerya launched a project to transform its mobility solutions. The utility sought to bring mobile technology to its field force, and to automate and digitize data communication and operation processes.
“The mobile devices to be used in the field had to be powerful, robust and capable of reading barcodes,” said Cahit Yilmaz, mobile applications expert. In addition, these devices needed to be compatible with Enerya’s SAP communications software and offer long battery life.
Enerya reviewed its options to find a mobility solution that met its demanding needs, selecting a 7” Android-powered Panasonic Toughpad. Between March 2013 and April 2014, a team of Enerya experts worked closely with Panasonic teams to deploy the ruggedized Toughpad tablets. The deployment was a huge success, integrating into Enerya’s processes and SAP systems. Among other efficiencies, the seven-step work order process was reduced to just three steps: work order release, process finalization and form printout.
“Thanks to the mobile applications used by our team, we made great progress in both data accuracy and in time and resource savings,” said Arda Anil, information technologies manager. “In brief, we now have modern technology, a properly running system and added security.”
For more information on this solution, read the full Panasonic case study detailing Enerya deployment of Toughpad ruggedized tablets to its mobile workforce. For more information on how Panasonic can help utilities mobilize and operate in real time, visit Panasonic Utilities Solutions.
