Fulcrum offers a diverse suite of applications tailored to the electric utilities industry. These tools streamline electric utility asset management and utility field service operations. Whether you choose from our ready-made options or use our flexible platform to design custom digital utility solutions, Fulcrum empowers you to address your unique challenges effectively.
Industry
Electric utilities
The Fulcrum field data collection platform helps electric utilities and contractors standardize field data management for regulatory compliance, adapt field processes to exact specs, integrate seamlessly with GIS, and bridge the gap between FieldTech and back-office ecosystems.
Fulcrum lets electric utilities shine bright with better operational efficiency.
Trusted by nearly 3,000 companies and 50,000 users in 100+ countries
What is Fulcrum?
Electric utilities and contractors in utility sectors worldwide trust Fulcrum’s SaaS-based field data collection and utility process management platform to efficiently capture and share reliable on-site activity data—faster than paper or traditional digital solutions.
Our standardized, easily customized, and well-integrated data platform bridges the gap between FieldTech and utility industry office systems, streamlining electric utility asset management, utility data collection, and decision-making processes.
Standardize field data collection
Customize field processes
Streamline two-way integration
Discover how the Fulcrum platform reduces costs, enhances data reliability, and drives digital transformation for the electric utilities industry with powerful field data collection and management solutions.
Platform overviewHarness Fulcrum software for utility organizations.
Fulcrum use cases extend far beyond field data collection.
Harness Fulcrum software for utility organizations.
Fulcrum use cases extend far beyond field data collection.
GIS
Empower your GIS management with advanced geospatial tools for precise mapping and analytical insights, optimizing workflows and ensuring reliable GIS data for essential services.
Digital transformation
Drive modernization with our team of industry experts by digitizing field operations and cutting down on paper-based processes, boosting productivity while increasing operational agility.
IT/CIO
Leverage Fulcrum's scalable and secure platform to integrate field data with existing IT systems, reducing custom development needs and bolstering data security inside advanced analytics systems.
Field operations
Streamline your field operations with real-time data collection and communication capabilities, ensuring efficient administrative tasks like resource management and task execution.
How Fulcrum optimizes electric utility field operations
Optimize vegetation management
Capture detailed observations along with photo and video evidence to monitor encroachment risks and ensure adherence to setback guidelines for compliance management. Use data collected to enhance external AI predictive analyses and decision-making processes, prioritizing maintenance based on field observations and data captured from FieldTech tools such as drones and LiDAR.
Minimize power outage impact
Improve power outage response with advanced field data collection and immediate access to real-time data. Facilitate rapid emergency team mobilization with straightforward onboarding processes. Enable efficient coordination and deployment through real-time communication and data sharing among technicians and managers, accelerating the restoration process. Store and review outage data and recovery actions using AI-enhanced systems to refine future response strategies.
Preserve the grid
Improve electric utility infrastructure security by collecting detailed geospatial data for key security features such as barriers and fencing around utility assets, allowing for the rapid deployment of electrical field teams to tackle vulnerabilities. Guide maintenance schedules and mitigate risk with accurate asset tracking data, enhanced with GIS visualizations and integrated with information gathered through FieldTech tools like drones and sensors.
Optimize power pole maintenance
Revolutionize electric utility pole inspections with advanced digital data collection for grid operations and precise documentation of conditions and locations, seamlessly integrating asset management data. Leverage FieldTech tools like drones and sensors to inform maintenance and replacement timelines, standardize asset maintenance inspection protocols across teams, and ensure consistency, extending pole lifespan and enhancing the reliability of your power distribution network.
Challenges in electric utility field operations
The Fulcrum platform is built to comprehensively support electrical field management, offering precision for pole inspections, proactive strategies for vegetation and asset management for utilities, and rapid response capabilities for emergencies.
Resources
Explore our resources tailored to help energy company field teams maximize the potential of the Fulcrum platform.
Resource libraryFulcrum for T&D field operations
“We use Fulcrum for training, pole inspections, line patrol, just about any type of field operation. We incorporate it into as many places as we can to see what information we can collect from our crews.”
Brian Stroud, Vice President and GIS Developer
GeoForce Utility Technology
Boost productivity
“We were spending about three minutes per pole before. Now it takes 30 to 45 seconds — a time savings of at least 75% per pole.”
Greg Humphries, Engineering Project Supervisor
Owen Electric Cooperative
Ease of use
“We found Fulcrum to be really easy to work with. From the user side, it was always one of our favorite apps, if not the favorite.”
Holly Palmer, Senior Specialist Data Analytics
Southern California Edison
Do more without adding headcount
“Before Fulcrum, 2 full-time employees plus a contractor were needed to perform 45 inspections a day. With Fulcrum, that rate increased to 60 inspections a day with only the two employees, eliminating the need (and expense) of an outside contractor.”
Northpower
Field team software and technology glossary
A reference guide to the platforms and systems used by modern field teams
Software platforms are designed to help business domain owners standardize their processes and data, customize those processes and data as business needs change, and integrate with other systems. Each platform serves a distinct purpose, focusing on specialized tasks like accounting, asset maintenance, or deep spatial analysis.
A single organization may rely on a complex ecosystem of software platforms to run their operations, manage finances, and guide their workforce.
Understanding how each system fits into the larger operational picture is essential for maximizing your technology investments and achieving optimal field execution. Below, we describe the platforms that shape the modern enterprise.
1. Field Process Management (FPM)
- What they are: FPM platforms are designed to boost productivity and streamline operations by empowering field teams to standardize, customize, and integrate workflows that include inspections, equipment maintenance, vegetation management, and other widely varied processes. To support field teams in geospatially sophisticated industries such as power utilities, water and wastewater management, and environmental engineering, Field Process Management platforms require the ability to use and capture point, line, and polygon geospatial information alongside a wide variety of other data — a major functional difference relative to Field Service Management systems.
- About Fulcrum: Fulcrum enables field teams to bring together safety, inspection, maintenance, and other processes into a form they can manage and customize for their own purposes, while ensuring a clean, actionable data flows to and from the office in real-time.
2. Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)
- What they are: GIS specialize in the capture, management, analysis, and presentation of geographically referenced data. GIS platforms such as Esri ArcGIS and QGIS excel at producing sophisticated maps and deep spatial analysis, visualizing data relationships and patterns across large areas.
- Fulcrum’s role: Fulcrum provides geospatial context to fieldworkers and helps them accurately capture location-based field data, acting as the bridge that ensures high-quality data flows easily to and from the core enterprise GIS.
3. Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
- What they are: EAM platforms such as IBM Maximo and Infor EAM manage the full lifecycle of physical assets including acquisition, inspection, maintenance, and disposal. These systems track asset location, condition, and maintenance history critical for compliance and long-term operational health.
- Fulcrum’s role: Fulcrum connects with EAM platforms to provide field teams with critical asset information and to deliver the essential, real-time field data needed to keep the asset records accurate and actionable.
4. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- What they are: ERP platforms integrate and manage core business processes, including finance, human resources, supply chain, and manufacturing across an entire organization. An ERP system like SAP, Oracle NetSuite, or Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the backbone of the business, unifying data into a central repository to enable enterprise-wide decision-making.
- Fulcrum’s role: Fulcrum extends the reach of the ERP, providing a flexible mobile layer for collecting operational data from the front lines of the business.
5. Safety Management Systems (SMS)
- What they are: SMS platforms are used to formalize safety procedures, report incidents, conduct risk assessments, and track compliance across an organization. Platforms like VelocityEHS provide a centralized hub for managing workplace hazards and training records to proactively enhance worker well-being.
- Fulcrum’s role: Fulcrum is the ideal field layer, helping to create a culture of safety by incorporating safety processes into every field workflow. Then, by capturing granular, location-based data related to all field activities, Fulcrum instantly feeds fresh safety data into the SMS for deeper analysis and immediate action.
6. Quality Management Systems (QMS)
- What they are: QMS software is dedicated to maintaining consistent product or service quality through standardized documentation, process control, and non-conformance reporting. QMS solutions such as MasterControl and ETQ Reliance ensure that processes adhere to industry standards and regulatory requirements through structured data management.
- Fulcrum’s role: Fulcrum digitizes and standardizes the quality checks and inspections conducted in the field, making QMS validation and auditing significantly more efficient.
7. Field Service Management (FSM)
- What they are: FMS platforms are designed to organize and optimize the scheduling, dispatching, and routing of technicians for specific work orders or customer visits. FSM systems such as Salesforce Field Service and ServiceMax primarily focus on the logistics of the service process, ensuring the right person is sent to the right place at the right time.
- How Fulcrum differs: Fulcrum concentrates on the actual execution of work once a team arrives on site, providing field-first digital data capture and process management tools that FSM systems lack.
8. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- What they are: CRM platforms manage a company’s interactions with current and potential customers, organizing data related to sales, service, and marketing activities. CRM systems such as HubSpot and Zoho CRM are designed to improve business relationships and drive customer retention by centralizing communication history.
- Fulcrum’s role: Fulcrum provides field workers with customer context while enabling them to quickly capture critical data points during a service call or site visit, ensuring the CRM remains updated with the most current customer information.
9. Forms Automation Tools
- What they are: Forms Automation tools, such as GoCanvas and JotForm, allow organizations to convert paper forms into simple digital documents for general data collection, typically without advanced features like integrated GIS. These office-centric platforms focus on simple data replication and basic reporting for administrative tasks, and they often don’t have a database of their own that can serve as a central repository for field process data.
- How Fulcrum differs: Fulcrum offers robust, geospatial-aware field process management, going far beyond simple form replacement to enable complex workflows, offline work, and AI-powered data capture.