When the leading provider of mobile inspection services for utilities makes the switch from the incumbent – its proprietary, in-house software for pole assessments and field inspections – to an outside vendor, it’s a big deal. Osmose Utilities Services Company has done just that, swapping out its homegrown mobile pole inspections and evaluations application to Fulcrum’s SaaS field inspection platform.
Osmose is the market-leading provider of grid asset management and infrastructure support services for electric and telecommunications utilities employing over 4,000 employees in 49 states. With a commitment to providing quick but comprehensive data collection and inspection services to its clients, Osmose turned to Fulcrum to simplify processes, provide critical location intelligence to field teams, and integrate seamlessly with its enterprise system.
Don’t start from the beginning – start from where you left off
No one wants to reinvent the wheel – and no one wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater. When companies contemplate switching from their in-house, custom technology solutions to a SaaS partner, a primary concern is that they will have to begin from the beginning, and lose all the information they already have – and all the hard work that went into collecting that data.
For Osmose, a critical factor in selecting the Fulcrum field operations solution was being able to utilize Osmose’s extensive pool of existing geolocation data. This meant that instead of starting from scratch as is the case with some other field inspection software, Osmose started from strength – the incredible breadth of GIS information it had painstakingly collected over the course of decades. In addition, as a Powered by Esri™ partner, Fulcrum is uniquely positioned to integrate this existing data to help field teams get to where they need to go, and deliver location intelligence to help them do their job effectively once they get there.
Fast, user-friendly, flexible, and far-reaching
Once Osmose learned it would still be able to build from its existing database of geolocation records, then it turned to the other factors involved in making the switch worth the effort: will our teams be able to do their work more quickly? Will the software be easy to use without onboarding hassles? Will the tech be able to be adjusted to suit our needs, particularly coming from a fully customized in-house solution? And finally, will our inspectors be able to do their work even in areas without mobile connectivity, in the actual middle of nowhere? As Osmose has discovered, the answers are emphatically yes, yes, yes, and yes!
Osmose CIO Chuck Musciano said, “Fulcrum is designed for the needs of mobile inspectors, minimizing the learning curve and further simplifying inspections for our field teams, allowing us to perform a greater volume of pole inspections while reporting on our progress in real-time. The end result is greater efficiency and shorter project cycles for us, and faster, more comprehensive delivery for our customers who rely on us to ensure grid resiliency and reliable, safe energy delivery every day.”
Fulcrum is proud to help Osmose continue to deliver best-in-class inspection services to its utility clients. To get more details on Fulcrum’s new partnership with Osmose, please check out our press release – and to our friends at Osmose, welcome aboard!
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