Real-time work collaboration is nothing new for office workers and white-collar professionals. From chat programs to interactive document sharing to video conferencing, office workers use these valuable tools to enhance their productivity on a daily basis. But what about remote field workers? The applicability, usability and effectiveness of these office tools for field workers are not exactly a raging success. Field workers, especially those in green energy, generally don’t get to share in the benefits of these office collaboration tools.
The distributed workforce required to operate and maintain green energy production facilities faces many challenges. These include unique site requirements, complicated processes, cryptic instructions, lack of access to information, government regulations, company policies, and poor real-time support, all of which can complicate and impede the execution of their work. These issues are exacerbated by the physical separation of workers from management. Furthermore, the use of contracted and subcontracted resources complicates these issues.
Remote field workers are often focused on the details of the work and not the procedures and protocols that typically vary from project to project. These workers are often ill equipped when it comes to the availability of management, training, documentation, resources and real-time communications. More often than not, they are simply left to their own devices to accomplish their work.
For supervisors, the issues are no less complex. Supervisors are being asked to manage more people and do not have the time to monitor and shepherd each task assigned to a worker. Even basic status updates from field workers are extremely difficult to collect, especially in a timely manner. Oftentimes, supervisors learn of operational problems long after they have occurred. The results are supervisors who have to “manage to the plan” instead of “managing the actual” due to the lack of timely information.
In summary, the top issues for those that rely upon a mobile and remote workforce are work governance, risk mitigation, and operational efficiency. Collaboration tools and ticketing systems designed for office workers are not equipped to address these issues proactively.
Mirific Systems Inc. has recently released a cloud based solution designed from the ground up to specifically address the multitude of issues plaguing remote, distributed and mobile workforces. Mirific is a collaborative work management solution that excels in guiding managers and workers through complex processes and procedures, ensuring that job gets done the right way at the right time. This solution is specifically designed for remotely managed mobile workers, whether these workers are direct employees or subcontractors. Mirific provides a unique combination of work management, collaboration and intuitive usability specifically designed for remote field workers.
Mirific enables the creation and organization of projects, departments and assets. Projects represent areas of work, either physical sites or a logical grouping of work. Projects have a life cycle as well. Departments allow for the definition and management of worker resources. The management of specific departments, especially departments of subcontractors, can be fully and securely delegated. Once workers are defined, they can be associated with projects using one or more roles. These roles equate to levels of functionality and access control. Critical and capital assets can also be defined in Mirific. Assets, like workers, are assigned to a project. Once defined, these assets can either be the target of a task or act as a required resource to accomplish a specific task. After the basics of departments, projects, workers and assets are set up, Mirific is ready to begin managing work.
The Mirific solution enables supervisors to create project tasks and assign those tasks to workers or teams of workers. Tasks may be defined with detailed instructions and attached documentation ensuring each worker has the required information to be successful. Furthermore, part of the task definition can enforce a specific workflow to ensure critical procedures and adherence to regulations. Workers are provided real-time, interactive chat channels that enable instant conversations with supervisors and other workers about potential problems and work task issues. The use of custom defined checklists ensure accountability and guide workers through complex tasks. Easy to use data collection features, such as manual data entry, barcode scan, QR code scan, and image upload from mobile devices, make it simple for workers to capture and communicate required information during the execution of a task. Finally, task checklists can also be used to automatically update work status in real-time by communicating and visualizing the percentage of work completed.
The field workers will primarily use the Mirific Mobile App, which is available on iOS and Android, and optimized for both smartphone and tablets. The app is simple to use and intuitive, as well as being specifically designed to minimize manual data entry. Screens are simple to navigate and easy to read. Workers can easily find their assigned tasks and work the task through its life cycle to completion by simply following guided prompts making it easy for workers to discern the next step of a task. Through a variety of configurable input methods, Mirific can collect critical information during the execution of a task ensuring process accountability. Mirific can also integrate with other systems sharing all collected information for advanced data analysis.
For administrators and supervisors whose job it is to create and manage tasks, Mirific provides a web user interface designed to satisfy the most demanding user enabling them to easily find, filter or search for the desired task and project information. Live views and dashboards make it easy to visualize completed work as well as monitor work in progress. The detailed reporting provides necessary information to pass audits and compliance verifications. Chat channels for each task and project enable real-time communications with workers in the field. Furthermore, the chat channels and collected data are archived once the task is completed preserving them for future use.
Mirific is designed from the ground up to fully integrate vendors and subcontractors into the work process by leveraging an easy to use yet sophisticated access control system. Vendors and subcontractors are allowed to manage their own departments and teams. Project administrators and managers can assign tasks and schedules to each vendor or subcontractor.
Mirific provides the ideal solution for green energy remote workforces by: 1) Increasing worker efficiency, 2) Protecting workers and resources, 3) Ensuring compliance with regulations and policies, and 4) Increasing organizational accountability.
Mirific provides a number of monthly subscription plans to meet the needs of even the most demanding organization. The FREE plan is ideal for small companies as well as evaluating the many features and capabilities of the solution. Trying Mirific is simple and easy as the FREE plan does not require a credit card. To learn more about how Mirific can help your organization address the challenges of work management, please visit the website or email info@mirificsystems.com.
Chris Gaskins is the cofounder and CEO of Mirific Systems Inc. He resides in Austin, Texas, and has over 30 years of experience delivering technology solutions to enterprise organizations. Mirific Systems, Inc. is an Austin, Texas, based SaaS company focused on solving the problems of work management for dispersed workforces.
