Mobile Apps for Operations: 5 Ways to Smooth Implementation
We look in detail at five of the best ways businesses can plan for mobile operations success.
A common concern when considering the implementation of mobile operations is the belief that back-office administrators and field technicians will be unable or unwilling to adopt the new methods, leading to low adoption and diluted return on investment.
There is also some concern that switching over is risky, and that there are too many dangers in terms of smooth adoption, cost, and the efficiency of ongoing processes.
Obviously, it is natural to be concerned about potential problems. However, the good news is that there are ways to deal with each of those concerns. In this blog post, we consider five of the most common concerns and provide advice based on practical experience of introducing mobile technology to oil and gas, utility and equipment rental operations.
1 – Implementation: Will It Take Too Long?
Implementation time is much shorter than you might think. Spartan can typically deliver a working solution in less than 50 days. The key things to consider are:
• Integration to existing back-office and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) IT systems.
Systems integration typically absorbs more time and cost than people typically plan for. One way to reduce this risk is take a phased implementation approach. Phase 1 could, for example, implement a stand-alone mobile field service solution with minimal back-office integration.
We have worked with customers where the bare minimum read-only data (e.g. employees, equipment, inventory, price lists etc) was imported into PHALANX in the early phases to ensure project deadlines were met. Spartan has successfully used this ‘light integration’ approach to implement Phase 1 solutions in less than 2 weeks!
If tight two-way integration is required (and it does provide a lot of benefit, especially with complex ERP systems) then it can be deferred to a future phase. The phased approach will deliver the greatest return on investment in the shortest timeframe.
• Manage ‘Scope Creep’
Functional ‘scope creep’ is another common cause of IT project delay and increased costs.
Having tight deadlines in a phased delivery plan is a great way to control scope creep. It is difficult to over-engineer a solution to accommodate ‘nice to have’ user requirements if you are working to a 50 day deadline. So keep your deadlines deliberately short to avoid the project bloating with your users ‘nice to have’ requirements that often don’t add much business value.
2 – Cost: Will mobile be too expensive?
As you can see from our How to Build a Mobile Business Case white papers, mobile apps can be extremely cost-effective and lead to increased profitability across your operation.
Spartan can help you reduce up-front costs by leveraging cloud-based hosting platforms and low-cost consumer smartphone devices.
We also have a Mobile Operations Return On Investment (ROI) calculator that can help you quantify Cost vs Benefit and calculate the Break Even Point.
You can speak with any of our customers to validate the savings they have made through replacing paper with mobile apps.
Try out our free ROI calculator
3- Manpower: We don’t have the resources to deliver another IT project
You don’t need to dedicate a large IT and business implementation team to introduce mobile apps to your operation.
PHALANX can be deployed ‘off the shelf’ into a cloud hosted platform (either internal or external to your IT network) in less than one hour.
If you decide to implement minimal back-office integration (at least in the short term) then all we need is the basic data required to ‘seed’ Phalanx (e.g. employees, project codes, inventory, price lists, customer identifiers etc.).
Once you have selected the target mobile device (e.g. iPhone, Android) then we will work with your IT team to install the PHALANX apps and your job administrators and field technicians can start user testing within a very short time of implementation kick-off.
4 – Integration: Will mobile apps integrate directly with other back-office systems and ERP?
Yes. PHALANX is designed to integrate with back-office applications and ERP systems (including Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and Infor M3).
If you have invested heavily in an ERP system to support your operation then you should implement two-way integration with your operational mobility platform at the earliest sensible opportunity.
5 – Connectivity: I can’t even use my mobile phone to make a call in the field!
There is a common misconception that apps that receive and transmit data need to be wirelessly connected at all times.
Some solutions use mobile devices with a browser directly connected to an ERP system, which works as long as they have a solid, always-on connection.
However, the moment a crew moves out of mobile range and into a more remote area, these tools become useless.
The truth is that a permanent mobile connection is unnecessary if you are using the right tools. PHALANX apps locally store information such as job ticket data, photographs and signatures that are sent back when connection is re-established. Field technicians can even create new tickets within the app if the work is unscheduled.
Work in progress is always cached on the device, meaning that even if the signal drops out suddenly the job will not be interrupted.
When the connection is re-established all work is seamlessly synchronised between PHALANX Mobile, PHALANX Server and the back-office systems. In areas with little or no connectivity, PHALANX automatically switched to “Airplane Mode” to allow users to continue working as normal.
These implementation approaches have been tried and tested by Spartan for over 10 years. They are equally applicable to field, depot and warehouse logistics in the Oil and Gas, Utility and Equipment Rental industries. For more information please have a look around out website or contact us directly.