+ 5,000 towers
telecoms across the country
+ 15,000 reports/year
The Field Service App has automated and standardized the procedures for technical visits to telecom towers, increasing quality and reducing report delivery times.
Brazil has around 100,000 antennas and 80,000 telecom towers installed across the country, but the advent of 5G is expected to quadruple this number, the Telebrasil 2020 Panel revealed. According to Luciano Stutz, president of the Brazilian Telecommunications Infrastructure Association (Abrintel), the sector is expecting investments of around R$5 billion by the end of 2023. These good prospects promise to shake up the entire ICT ecosystem, including tower manufacturing and maintenance.
Contel is a good example of how this market will have to prepare itself to compete and grab a larger share of the market. The company has undergone a profound digital transformation, especially in the management of its field resources, which has increased efficiency and service capacity and given managers the possibility of seeing their entire external operation without leaving the office.
Contel's O&M (maintenance) department is responsible for inspecting more than 5,000 towers across the country, including activities such as site clearance, site closure, technical assistance for the metal structure and for equipment installed at the base, among others. This preventive maintenance is essential, as the weather, vandals, birds and animals are always threats to the smooth running of telecommunications in the country. But without automation, managing maintenance processes became more challenging every day.
"Our field technicians inspect towers in the most remote places in Brazil, such as Porto Valter and Marechal Taumaturgo, cities in Acre that can only be reached by plane. Each visit is crucial for the smooth running of the network," said Gustavo Henrique Borges Alencar, Contel's operational director.
He explains that the towers receive a technical visit every four months, and the inspections must generate comprehensive reports for the clients. In order to carry out the mission, the field staff would leave for the inspection with a camera and cell phone, but would fill out a paper form. "In the evening, when they arrived at the hotel, the technicians would download the photos and send them, along with the report, to the company's offices for completion of an Excel report. This whole process took 2-3 days, delaying the arrival of the information to the clients," he said.
Another problem in the pre-digital transformation phase was the failure to comply with the checklist requested and required by the client. "Sometimes a technician would forget to take a photo in a predefined and mandatory sequence. When he remembered, he was already in another city. So he had to go back and redo the job. This led to increased costs and more delays," he said.
Gustavo Alencar says that the technological evolution experienced by the company came about as a result of an external demand. "We knew that we needed to automate our processes, but the catalyst was when a major client told us that all its partners would have to adopt an application for reporting. We looked for suppliers and even started to develop an app, but it was then that the same client recommended using OfficeTrack, an Israeli field resource management application, which had been chosen as the standard by the company worldwide," he recalled.
This is how OfficeTrack, the Field Service app marketed in Brazil by the consultancy 3CON, arrived at Contel and began to be used by around 50 field technicians. But its use went far beyond reports.
The app automated the processes of inspecting the towers and managing external resources, including controlling employees' clock-in and clock-out times, accountability and even aspects such as work safety. The app also helped to check that technicians were wearing uniforms and personal protective equipment.
The director recalls that, initially, there was a certain resistance on the part of some employees to adopting the new technology, but the ease of use and the advantages of the electronic form proved that the evolution was good for everyone.
"The app has reduced problems during visits, costs, deadlines and ensured the traceability of every resource in the field. Today, we can see our entire operation, we know exactly what is happening outside the office."
Alencar is keen to highlight the changes that technical visit reports, an essential activity, have undergone: "Our tower maintenance business requires a huge number of reports. There are more than 15,000 a year or around 40 a day. Without automation, this activity took up a lot of time, involved a lot of people and was more prone to failures and delays. Now, the reports are standardized and practically error-proof, as the app itself prevents errors in inspection and completion. The technician is obliged to follow the sequence established in the electronic form. If he doesn't perform a task, such as taking a certain photo, he won't be able to finish or send the report," he said.
The new report is filled in from the cell phone, and with a few clicks the technician finishes filling it in. As well as facilitating work in the field, OfficeTrack is very intuitive when it comes to formatting these forms according to the company's routines and needs. "Even if you don't specialize in IT, you can customize the forms so that the app meets our reality and that of each client," he said.
For him, the cost of the app pays for itself by avoiding rework, since it has greatly reduced errors in the field, as well as promoting the optimization of human resources and improving the perception of clients due to the modernity and efficiency of the processes - delivery times have been reduced from days to a few hours. "As we got to know and understand all the advantages of the app, we decided to implement it for most of our clients," he praised.
When it comes to digital transformation, many companies don't get excited, precisely because they fear traumatic processes that will slow down their operations, or because of the lack of after-sales support. Gustavo Alencar attests that Contel had none of these setbacks. "The implementation of OfficeTrack in the field or in the back office went smoothly. 3CON gave us the technical support we needed at every stage, from implementation to day-to-day operations; that made a lot of difference," he concluded.
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