Using information and communications technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of a utility's network data collection business process

Van Olst, Rex

Using information and communications technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of a utility's network data collection business process

dc.contributor.author	Van Olst, Rex
dc.date.accessioned	2007-02-15T11:19:22Z
dc.date.available	2007-02-15T11:19:22Z
dc.date.issued	2007-02-15T11:19:22Z
dc.description	Student Number : 0063608J - MSc(Eng) dissertation - School of Electrical and Information Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment	en
dc.description.abstract	“You can see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics”. This offhand remark by Robert Solow, the Nobel prize-winning economist [1] has stimulated many other economists to conduct more rigorous analyses on the impact of information technology on productivity. The research presented in this dissertation has been conducted on a large telecommunications utility. An important business process of the utility, that of collecting information on its geographically dispersed network assets, was automated using mobile computing and wireless technologies. The research compared this newly developed automated process with the current, manual, process of sourcing the field network asset data using paper-based templates, and capturing the data manually from the templates. The results of the pilot for this automated business process were encouraging and demonstrated an improvement of over 50% in the productivity of the data collection process, and its integrity. An important aspect of the research outlined in this dissertation was to design and implement the mobile computer-based electronic data collection prototype to minimise user obstruction to the technology deployed. The prototype was tested for technology acceptance by the targeted field workers. This test also proved successful. The research demonstrated that an improvement in productivity of over 50% was achievable from a well-considered investment in information technology. The results from the research also pointed the way for the deployment of this data collection solution in other utilities, e.g. electricity distribution, water reticulation, and municipalities. Through user prototype tests and a cultural intervention process on the targeted users (field workers), the research also demonstrated how the automated business process can be geared for use by low-skilled field workers, so important to improve productivity in developing economies such as those in Africa.	en
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dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10539/2002
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.subject	mobile computing	en
dc.subject	IT investments	en
dc.subject	productivity	en
dc.subject	usability	en
dc.subject	data collection process	en
dc.subject	geographical information systems	en
dc.subject	GIS	en
dc.subject	technology acceptance	en
dc.title	Using information and communications technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of a utility's network data collection business process	en
dc.type	Thesis	en