Problem

TMI used an analog workflow to dispatch field employees. Field employees were using printed directions to get to a job site and referencing physical copies of permits and plans. It was difficult to keep everything organized, especially for multi-day jobs.

They were also experiencing inventory inaccuracies and having a difficult time tracking their vehicles. TMI equipment was often taken and returned to the yard without any documentation. Inventory was lost or forgotten at the job site and it was unclear when it happened or who was responsible. Company vehicles were not tracked, so a field employee could be assigned an unavailable vehicle and take a different one, without notifying the dispatcher.

Needs & Goals

• Be able to view documents like traffic control plans and permits out in the field
• Track company vehicles and equipment
• Employees need to be able to track their time
• Be able to track and distribute up to date business rules, safety documentation, and union rules to field employees
• Increase time tracking accuracy and reduce inconsistencies
• Improve the administrative workflow of reviewing receipts and approving time
• Increase communication between dispatchers and field employees

Our Work

We built in app-navigation to replace the need to print out directions every day.

TMI can reliably track vehicles and make sure field employees are only assigned available vehicles. Field employees will only be assigned available vehicles and all employees are now accountable for company vehicles.

Dispatchers can easily update field employees of job cancellations or changes, reducing missed dispatches.

Our Work

TCMobile manages the entire lifecycle of a job for a field employee.

Highlights

• Built the mobile backend
• We built a custom PDF renderer to view documents in-app. Raw PDF viewing on iOS is extremely slow, so we render PDF pages into images that cycle in and out. If a user zooms in, that area is rendered in high detail, replacing that part of the displayed image. This results in high performance and high visual quality.
• Responsible Development: several developers worked on this iOS app. We value proper source code and naming conventions and remove old, unused code to reduce unnecessary complexity.

Results

• 30% reduction in time inconsistencies
• Automated administrative process of traffic management.
• Eliminated the cost of the previous vehicle tracking solution by building our own GPS tracking.
• TCMobile is easier for TMI’s customers. They get instant access to field service receipts and can even use their finger to sign them within the app. Because everything is in one place, TMI is able to provide faster customer service.