Strong together
Technical public utility operation with an integrated software soultion for asset management, maintenance planning and execution: cooperation company NetzWerkStadt GmbH & Co. Kg uses GS-Service as a game changer in digital transformation.
Client Reference | NetzWerkStadt GmbH & Co. KG
Headquarter Friedrichshafen: NetzWerkStadt GmbH & Co. KG (NWS) is a joint venture between the municipalities of Stadtwerke am See, Stadtwerke Bad Saulgau, Stadtwerke Mengen and Regionalwerk Bodensee.
Strong together
The digital transformation is and remains the No. 1 trend topic for municipal utilities from Flensburg to Friedrichshafen. The greatest challenge, especially at the beginning of the digitalization initiative 15 years ago was to implement the processes in operations management and maintenance. On the one hand, because processes describe variable states and are therefore complex, on the other hand because they are inseparably linked to the human factor. NetzWerkStadt, the service provider and IT partner of several municipal utilities in the region is very familiar with the challenges at the interface between the employee as the bearer of the work process and the IT solution of several municipal utilities in the region. That is why the experts for asset management, energy economics and management consulting in the development, training and hosting of the operations management and maintenance software GS-Service (GreenGate AG) on the greatest possible participation from service to operational management to the executive management.
Strategy is not paper-based
Dario Spampinato (34), NWS Project Manager in the Asset and Workforces Management segment, first breaks down the bigger picture to the fundamental challenge on the site. "The strategic line of digitalization is comparable to the municipal utilities we serve: It's about the technicians no longer having to utilize paperwork.” The reason is quickly explained: “It is about the well-known media disruptions in the transfer of data from the clipboard to the IT system, data inconsistencies due to manual activities, inadequate instructions, insufficient guidance, instruction and documentation of the activities of external service providers, no insight into the history of assets and processes and if for example employee B is supposed to continue an open project of employee A, but only the paper file is available.”
Apart from nostalgia, nothing remains: "Digitalization is of course the main topic at the municipal utilities. Colleagues were so paper fixated, for the documentation alone it felt like ten heads were needed to complete it. With the right IT application, just one application would have been sufficient," he says. "Let's take the example of the ladder inspection, which was hybrid documented at the municipal utilities until 2019. First there were the documents from the technician, who filled out some of the paperwork in writing and then passed it on to a typist who typed or scanned the data into the system for invoicing.”
Mobile order processing
Since NWS established the mobile solutions of the maintenance and operations management software GS-Service at the municipal utilities this procedure has changed fundamentally: Several work steps became a single one because the employees document all processing steps and results in the field on a tablet or smartphone. If desired, the data can be transferred immediately or in the case of offline work, later at the workstation or at configurable intervals. "Mobile task processing is now a very big topic and it saves a lot of time,” says Dario Spampinato.
The new efficiency starts with the map integration for easy orientation and the display of tasks in the surrounding and their status. Resources information, task processing with structured checklists, time recording and evaluation creation - everything is possible in GS-Service. But also feasible?
Headquarter Friedrichshafen: NetzWerkStadt GmbH & Co. KG (NWS) is a joint venture between the municipalities of Stadtwerke am See, Stadtwerke Bad Saulgau, Stadtwerke Mengen and Regionalwerk Bodensee.
NWS recommends GS-Service for plant management, maintenance planning and the execution of the technical public utility operations of its shareholders and other suppliers.
Facing the realities
"Yes, it can be done.” We communicate it in such a way that everyone understands and can set up the solution in such a way that it corresponds to the realities. We have already done observations for example for transformer inspections, in order to optimize the digital back-up of the technicians in GS-Service. The core question was: "How does the colleague really work?” In work process research, such an approach is known as a NAK analysis (user-task-context analysis) and is intended to optimize the user orientation of a product in short usability.
This is about the extent to which the product or IT solution supports the user in his or her tasks in the specific context situation. The more and the easier it does this the greater the acceptance among users. Dario Spampinato knows this because he knew the opposite: In the past, it was usually the case that software use was ordered top down, i.e. from above, but the employees didn't see the point. Nowadays when we put a tablet in the hands of our colleagues and show them how easy it is to access specific information, manage equipment and document tasks, the reaction is: "Oh, I might need it after all.”
Turning point in 2014
In 2014, GS-Service was introduced with a focus on the facilities and processes in the segments of water, electricity, heat and gas segments. Since 2019, the maintenance and inspections of the multi-storey car parks have been handled with GS-Service, in addition to planning, execution and management of the maintenance and operation of indoor swimming halls, Block-type thermal power plants and the municipalities' playgrounds. Interfaces exist among others to SAP, ERP and GIS.
Since 2019, NWS has also been offering its customers an all-inclusive service with the hosting of IT for operational management and maintenance. Fundamentally GS-Service, as a subordinate system to the ERP, integrates planning, documentation and monitoring functions and business applications into an information and management system. The object-oriented software - designed as a scalable client/server solution - is based on a standard technology and works under current Microsoft operating systems. The advantage: GS-Service's open system architecture allows it to be linked to other systems (GIS, ERP).
Practical daily work
Every working day, team leaders, foremen and technicians from the public utility company gather in the morning in the workroom or office for a team meeting. They then take their tablets or notebooks with their orders as a matter of course and they start the GS- Service-supported maintenance.
Dario Spampinato explains the functional principle in the background: "GS-Service keeps the master data of plants, measuring instruments, vehicles and equipment. We assign their maintenance requirements to these objects and automate the cycles. The tasks created in this way can be scheduled by the integrated module and transferred to mobile devices. In addition, the resources and materials can also be assigned for work preparation. The feedback in turn is stored in the system via data reconciliation, defects can be documented and processed further.” Another helpful function he has identified is the management, documentation and follow-up of the occupational safety instructions "This is the way to fulfil all legal requirements, such as the handling of hazardous substances, you don't lose the overview and you can carry out the work as efficiently as possible.”
Everything flows
This calculation definitely works: "Let's look at the water segment," Spampinato continues, "they are elated with this solution.
Due to the merger of two municipal utilities on Lake Constance, one of the challenges was to get an overview of which water facilities are in operation at the management of the respective municipal utility. With the digital inventory in GS-Service, all water facilities were recorded on the system side.
"The same applies to the approximately 1,000-page company manual that is mapped 1:1 in GS-Service with which the plant managers and team leaders work. "Colleagues can access and insert all the information in one central place.” The Single Source of Truth not only secures corporate knowledge on the IT side but also reduces the risk of conflicts: "No one is afraid that someone else knows more." Spampinato has registered a marked increase in the acceptance of GS-Service, “GreenGate is a catchphrase at the municipal utilities.” At NetzWerkStadt, people now speak to us directly about this and ask: "What else can the system do? This is a great indicator that we are doing very well with the system and are enthusiastic about the cooperation with GreenGate. "Why is that? Nothing is glossed over here, it is talked about - even at a regular Jour-fixe. We are very satisfied - a quick response is guaranteed at GreenGate.
” A new project is the implementation of automated email notifications from the GS service, so that the team leaders/employees are informed about completed orders from external service providers and can check them accordingly based on the completed order form. "That is also our objective: to digitalize as much as possible in order to automate as much as possible.”
Deloitte Study on Municipal utility IT
Following the COVID 19 pandemic, it has become clear that IT is not an alternative but simply 'the' solution. The consulting firm Deloitte writes in the article 'Use of IT services by municipal utilities - approaches for greater resilience in (post-)crisis times’ "The crisis situation caused by COVID-19 shows that, for example, the availability of IT services and the corresponding resilience of the organization become a critical success factor for ongoing operations.
For this reason, building resilience into all IT services used in-house or provided to third parties is an essential part of the digitalization strategy for municipal utilities.” With this, the global consulting giant gets to the heart of why NetzWerkStadt (NWS) is a sought-after municipal utility partner for the simple and secure provision and use of complex networked IT services. Above all, however, NWS advises municipal utilities and suppliers on the strategic question of which IT-related capabilities need to be further developed in the organization. All of this against the backdrop of a highly regulated industry which is bound by laws, regulations and directives.
NetzWerkStadt GmbH & Co. KG
User report
GS service: one system - many possibilities