Electricity Supply Board (ESB), Ireland's largest energy company, will use ClickSoftware's ClickSchedule workforce optimization software to streamline meter installation, replacement, and other service for millions of customers. ESB will integrate ClickSchedule with its SAP platform to automate the scheduling of its 500 field technicians.

Founded in 1927, Electricity Supply Board is 95 percent owned by the government of Ireland. It is a vertically integrated group of companies that provide electricity generation, transmission and distribution to customers in Ireland. It also operates in 25 other countries through its international wing ESBI. The company conducted an extensive evaluation of field service optimization vendors over several months before choosing ClickSchedule to automate its legacy workforce optimization process. It will integrate ClickSchedule to its SAP business software infrastructure, including its newly deployed SAP Mobile Asset Management for Utilities (MAU) system and its SAP work order creation module.

"ClickSoftware has a strong track record of successful SAP integrations that enable organizations to make their field service agents more productive and profitable," said Tony Carroll, Program Manager for ESB Networks, the company's transmission and distribution subsidiary. "ClickSchedule will play a crucial role in helping us minimize travel, improve job completion times and efficiency in the field to make sure we keep our customers satisfied."

ESB has a service charter with customers with guaranteed response times. If those times are not met, ESB pays customers a penalty fee. ClickSchedule will dynamically coordinate jobs based on urgency and their proximity to deadlines to help ESB avoid late penalties while strengthening customer relationships.

When fully deployed, ClickSchedule will be integrated with SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and SAP Industry-Specific Solution for Utilities (ISU). When the deployment is complete, customer calls will be routed through the CRM system and assigned a work order in ISU. ClickSchedule will take the work order information from ISU and automatically assign a field technician to the job. This scheduling process will take into consideration a whole host of variables and constraints including which engineer is appropriate to address the specific problem, the distance that engineer will need to travel to get to the job, etc. ClickSchedule will send the scheduled work order back to ISU, which will deliver the order to the right field technician's mobile device via the SAP mobile asset system.