Undisturbed work possible again more often for Enexis mechanics

Field staff suffer less inconvenience from lost internet connection Engineers of network operator Enexis who are constantly on the road are highly dependent on a good, reliable internet connection.
For a long time, they could not rely on this, resulting in a lot of lost time and frustration.
Thanks to NetMotion’s software solution, implemented by NetBoss, the inconvenience has been greatly reduced.
Field staff can focus on their work again by no longer having to deal with repeatedly setting up connections to the backend of the corporate network.
“Especially for companies that work with field employees, NetMotion’s solution is practically indispensable,” said Jacob Staats, ICT Consultant at Enexis.

Engineers Can’t Do Without Good Working Internet We all depend on energy all day long, both at home and at work.
It has become so obvious that we sometimes forget how the energy we purchase comes to us.
Enexis Netbeheer is one of eight grid operators in the Netherlands that plays an important role in this.
The main task of a grid operator is to build and maintain the energy network in the Netherlands.
In total, over 4,200 Enexis employees ensure every day that the Netherlands has light and heat.
For example, they manage a 130,000 km electricity grid and there are 44,800 km of gas pipelines in the ground.
More than 900 Enexis mechanics are on the road every day to carry out maintenance or install connections and energy networks.
These mechanics use laptops and tablets connected to the Internet to be in contact with the control center.
Not only to receive reports and obtain geographical data but also to be able to do the final work at the destination.

Reliable mobile connections In order to do their work, Enexis mechanics in the field must therefore be able to use a reliable mobile connection.
Unfortunately, this reliability was not self-evident.
Mechanics complained of Internet connections that kept dropping out, requiring them to manually set up and log in to a VPN connection ten to twenty times a day.
This was not only time-consuming but also very frustrating.

“Especially for companies working with field staff, NetMotion’s solution is practically indispensable. They don’t just stop at delivering the product but really think with you and the work process.”

Jacob Staats | ICT Consultant at Enexis

Enexis chose NetBoss to help them solve the problem of dropped and unreliable Internet connections for workstations in the field.
Prior to the implementation, however, employees in the field were skeptical about the feasibility of such a solution.
Indeed, in addition to unfamiliarity, there is often fear of this almost implausibly simple solution.
This is because the software-based infrastructure can run independently of the operating system and hardware, even without making changes to the existing system.
This Mobile Performance Management (MPM) Software tackles the problem and thus removes frustrations from users and IT departments.
The result: more enjoyable, faster and more secure work without the stress and frustration of unstable connections.

Constantly connected to key applications

Enexis started using the NetMotion software for other things besides guaranteeing reliable, stable connections.
In fact, performance issues were regularly observed with the devices used by field staff.
Together with NetBoss, Enexis started to investigate the problem.
It turned out that the device’s connection was being used too much for data traffic that was not necessary at that time, causing the most important applications to show little or no response.
NetBoss provided a solution to this problem, allowing only traffic that is absolutely necessary in the field at that moment.
Setting “policies” within NetMotion ensures that primary applications are given priority over other applications.
Thus, it can be automatically arranged that less data traffic is consumed over slower connections.
This greatly benefits application speed.
“NetBoss doesn’t just stop at delivering the product but really thinks with you and the work process,” Staats said.
The solution offered by NetBoss with its NetMotion software has been twofold for Enexis, namely both providing reliable connections and preventing unnecessary load on the connection used by the technician.