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Utilities Business Review | Thursday, January 06, 2022
The utility engineering landscape experiences many challenges that involve labor shortages, geographical difficulties, and ineffective resource management.
FREMONT, CA: Companies have yet to widely scale solutions to address challenges in utility engineering, despite embracing new technologies. With a skilled worker shortage and high retirement numbers, organizations have fewer resources but must maintain quality services. The digital transformation of enterprises requires technology solutions that safeguard critical institutional knowledge and enable seamless transitions to front-line roles to do more with less.
Providing field workers with technology tailored to their needs enables deeper knowledge capture and collaboration, significantly improving operational costs, worker satisfaction, and safety and capturing this critical knowledge from those retiring shortly. A remote collaboration solution that utilizes augmented reality to capture critical knowledge through video calls, recordings, images, and digital work instructions, as well as to analyze unstructured data using artificial intelligence and machine learning, can be developed.
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The utility industry can resolve some of the current challenges through the following considerations.
Enhanced training, onboarding, and reskilling: Further talent shortages will result from continued retirements in utilities. A remote collaboration solution such as augmented reality-enabled tools that can capture this information in the form of live video calls, recordings, images, digital work instructions, or by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to tag relevant data and analyze unstructured data is essential for training, onboarding, and reskilling. Training and capturing critical operational knowledge from retiring employees will be essential.
Instant accessibility to expertise: AR-enabled remote collaboration technologies enable instant access to help when needed. Providing workers with accurate information and advice can improve business outcomes, boost productivity, and increase efficiency.
Lower costs: Utilities spend an average of USD 14.6 billion on operations and maintenance. On average, power operators face complex equipment, on-site experts' limited availability, and cumbersome data search and communication challenges. The lack of proper knowledge, tools, and support will inevitably result in delays in repairs and maintenance. Using AR-enabled capabilities and solutions, field workers and control centers can easily access the necessary materials, personnel, and data at the point of service, allowing them to identify issues and perform repairs and inspections efficiently and effectively.
Despite embracing new technologies, companies have yet to scale solutions to address these challenges widely. As the number of retirees rises and skilled workers becomes scarcer, organizations are under pressure to deliver the same and better services with fewer resources. The digital transformation of enterprises requires the deployment of technology solutions that safeguard critical institutional knowledge, enable seamless training transitions to front-line roles, and ultimately help organizations achieve greater efficiency.
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