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M:tel a.d. Banja Luka, as the leading telecommunications operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), is continuously entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that its services operate seamlessly across the entire territory of BiH. Field operations represent a very important segment of M:tel’s activities, and they are exposed to significant challenges on a daily basis – both from the perspective of infrastructure exploitation and maintenance, as well as construction and access to end users.
The main goal of the project was to establish a centralized software system that would optimally manage the entire process of field operations, reduce the time required for task execution, minimize necessary resources, and ultimately lower overall costs. Such a software system is intended for users across all organizational units within M:tel where there is a need for a systematic approach to task organization, particularly when work assignments involve field activities.
As a result of a long-standing and successful partnership between M:tel and ASW Inženjering, our teams jointly developed the Workforce Management System - asw:optimus.
asw:optimus consists of three (3) applications:
Key features of the asw:optimus include easy administration and configuration, an intuitive and modern user interface, scalability, high availability, and a flexible mechanism for configurable integration with external systems via web services.
asw:optimus provides tools for arbitrary territorial and functional structuring across multiple hierarchically connected levels (Region, District, Area, etc.) for each company/partner. It also supports configurable task scheduling mechanisms that use policies/rule sets and objectives to ensure tasks are successfully allocated, with multi-criteria analysis applied in the process.
The dispatcher application enables simple mechanisms for managing technician and field worker group calendars, availability, responsibilities, profiles, and qualifications, as well as configuring group members and using different task assignment modes – manual, semi-automatic, and automatic. On a dedicated dispatcher portal, dispatchers can monitor real-time task status and field staff activities, send broadcast messages (individual or group), reassign tasks, schedule new ones, copy existing tasks, check for violations of predefined business rules, search tasks, and redefine task lists.
The mobile applications provide field staff with timely insight into all assigned tasks and the necessary tools for their execution. The Android mobile application remains functional even in the event of temporary loss of mobile signal, with any changes made by the user automatically synchronized with the central application once connectivity is restored.
asw:optimus supports both synchronous and asynchronous integration, as well as flexible communication configuration with integrated systems through integration messages. It provides an internal GIS service and also supports integration with third-party GIS solutions, enabling geolocation and calculation of geographic coordinates for relevant system entities (such as field worker or task location), calculation of distances and travel times between tasks, generation of daily planned/executed routes, real-time visibility of field worker locations, identification of the nearest worker on the map, and visualization of various geographic aspects on an integrated BiH map. Additionally, asw:optimus includes mechanisms for flexible map updates to ensure data accuracy necessary for proper system functioning.
By implementing asw:optimus, combined with the collection of accurate geolocation data, M:tel has achieved significant optimization of operational tasks, improved workforce efficiency, and enhanced customer satisfaction through higher service quality. The precision and relevance of the collected geolocation data also provide an excellent foundation for future efficient integration of asw:optimus with existing infrastructure management systems, such as those used for maintaining and building telecommunications and internet networks – including base stations, optical cables, hubs, energy nodes, and other key infrastructure elements.
This integration will not only improve accuracy and efficiency in network planning and maintenance but will also enable better strategic decision-making for infrastructure development. Moreover, it will enhance the stability and reliability of mobile and internet services, thereby strengthening the long-term sustainability of the network.
