F M Conway committed to the Oyster System

01 October 2008

Managing Reactive Works and the TMA in Real Time:

FM Conway in partnership with Oyster Technology (Master Plan and One Click developers) and Pervasic (providers of the Mobile One Network and mobile application developers) have just completed rolling out their Reactive Mobile Working solution in six London boroughs. The system provides an Eton5 compliant noticing interface, which allows works to be planned and allocated and subsequently transferred to smart phones, which are carried by the workforce. User intervention by the operative is limited to taking photos; declining or accepting works orders; and closing jobs - all via pull down menus on the touch screen. This is automatic electronic noticing driven by mobile working in action.

It Does What it Says on the Tin:

Oyster’s Master Plan server sits either remotely or locally and communicates with the council client’s network using SOAP server interface. On receipt of a batch of jobs electronically (from the client’s asset management system - EXOR, Symology, Mayrise, WDM or Confirm) into Master Plan’s pending table, the supervisor at FM Conway places them into the planner and allocates time frames and operatives to carry out the work. The appropriate advance street works notices are then raised for the jobs – this depends on whether work is major, standard, minor, emergency or urgent. This is sent automatically to the Street works Manager and street works registration system (EXOR, Symology, Mayrise, WDM or Confirm).

Automated Notices:

The supervisor can then batch jobs by location and type and dispatch to the operatives via Oyster’s One Click system and Pervasic’s Mobile One hand held application. This application resides on a voice and data enabled G3 smart phone. It provides all of the job information required to locate and carry out the works - this includes the ability to accept or decline a job (this application has been built using continuous input from end users). Once a job has been accepted the system requires a picture to be taken (a job cannot proceed without an image capture) this action also issues a start notice without any user intervention. The image and change in job status is also sent back to One Click allowing real time management, on completion comments, measurements and materials used are entered using pull down menus. The job closed notice is finally sent when a ‘work finished’ picture is taken. The data is then automatically transferred back to One Click and Master plan. Master Plan is the hub of the planning, scheduling and noticing of all works orders and the status of all jobs can be seen in real time - allocated, operative, noticed, started, declined, and closed. One Click and the G3 smart phone capture photographs and data and automatically provide notices. Images acquired using the camera on the smart phone automatically have job data attached and can subsequently be interrogated and viewed.

In Summary

F M Conway are currently the only highways maintenance contractor to truly resolve the minor and reactive works noticing issues by automating the whole process. With Local Authorities keen to show parity Conway’s have delivered a simple but effective solution.

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