When ONE Nordic won the huge contract with Ellevio in 2019, they knew that they had a challenging project ahead of them – but not that it would be carried out during a pandemic. When the last meter replacement was made in the spring of 2023, it was therefore extra gratifying to note that the schedule was kept and that Ellevio and the end customers were satisfied.
The challenge: a shortage of field technicians and meters
The project started in May 2020 just as the pandemic had broken out, first with a focus on quickly getting everything ready for the rollout.
In addition to the slightly dizzying task of replacing around 850,000 electricity meters for Swedish private customers in 3 years, fault correction and ten years of data collection were included in the contract.
The primary challenge was to recruit up to 200 field technicians and get them ready for the task. In addition to this, a scalable organization was needed that could handle really large volumes.
The next challenge turned out to be the unforeseeable deliveries of the 850,000 meters as the supplier, like others, was hit by material shortages and transport problems in the wake of the pandemic. This placed great demands on flexible planning and frequent customer communication, for example regarding changes at short notice. In addition, the pandemic restrictions meant that the pilot project had to be carried out outdoors on easily accessible meters.
In other words, the project had no shortage of unforeseeable events that put flexibility and adaptability to the test.
The Solution: Flexibility and Quick Adaptations
Recruitment was solved through flexible staffing agencies that could adapt to a varying need. But of course, the project was also completely dependent on the right technical support, in this case isMobile's work order management system.
We were able to build a stable, functional solution from the beginning based on Ellevio's and ONE Nordic's extensive requirements. However, as Filipe Vasconcelos, Sales Manager MeasurementTechnical Services, at ONE Nordic notes: "In the end, the system's adaptability and flexibility were crucial to the success of the project."
It was important to scale up both the system and the organization in a short time to be able to replace 1000 meters a day.
ONE Nordic listened to the client Ellevio, listened to users and customers and, together with isMobile, made adaptations and tests on an ongoing basis. Many opportunities for improvement, especially when it came to user-friendliness, were only discovered in live operation by end customers and customer service and could be quickly implemented.
The system's web-based planning tool provided full control over scheduling, work orders, staff occupancy and project status.
The field technicians were able to manage work orders and get all the information they needed via a user-friendly Android app that also worked offline. The application became crucial for the efficiency and quality of the fieldwork. Not least through templates and validation of input data that made it "easy to do the right thing". Through user-focused and rapid development, it could also be continuously improved to suit the needs of technicians in the field.
It is challenging for a project to bring in many technologies in a short period of time and get them up and running quickly. Efficiency and quality in the field were crucial to the success of the project and a flexible and user-friendly app is an important key to this. Thanks to user-focused and rapid development, the application could be continuously improved to suit the needs of the technicians.
Inspection of completed meter replacements was a key process to ensure quality at every stage. Through smart automation and logic, inspections could be created automatically, in large volumes on new technicians and then gradually lower proportions when the quality of the installations is determined. A powerful tool for the best possible quality with the least possible administration.
The logistics module was a prerequisite for being able to plan and adapt the project to the unpredictable meter deliveries. It always provided information about the location of each individual meter and current stock balances.
The dashboards of the statistics module also made it easy to follow up on KPIs, both for their own region and for all regions. Something that also made it effective to transfer knowledge and best practices within the organization.
Last but not least, the customer service portal. It was used both by an external customer service provider who was first-line support, and ONE Nordic's central customer service with four people as second line. ONE Nordic was able to control what information the customer service staff had access to. The ability to use an external customer service team when needed gave them the scalability and efficiency they needed.
The result: fast pace and satisfied customers
Ellevio is pleased with the collaboration and that the project has followed the schedule. 86% of the 33,000 end customers who responded to ONE Nordic's end-customer survey, answered -Very simple or -Simple to the question "How easy did you find it to confirm or reschedule the time for the electricity meter change". The survey shows that the customer interface was particularly crucial for customer satisfaction and efficiency, largely thanks to the smooth rebooking where the system optimized selectable times, says Filipe Vasconcelos, Sales Manager MeasurementTechnical Services at ONE Nordic.
If we look at the efficiency of our case management, we averaged a whopping 9,000 work orders per week with 2.5 planners. This means that it took just under 30 seconds to plan and send out each work order to technicians and that each field technician achieved impressive efficiency.
Mikael Swalén, Branch Manager at ONE Nordic, sums it up: "That our central system could adapt so quickly to the constantly changing conditions was undoubtedly a success factor. Together with the core team that held it all together, it was a great way to get everyone to work according to the same, clear processes."
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John Ljungdahl
Business Development Manager