Once snow begins to fall in Wisconsin, a significant amount of time and effort is required to keep the roadways and sidewalks clear and safe for drivers and pedestrians. Teams of drivers and dispatchers have to communicate quickly and efficiently to coordinate snow removal efforts. The dispatch foreman for the public works department in the Village of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, was having difficulty reaching and coordinating the movements of his snowplow drivers. The town sought to answer the question: Was there a better way to organize their team of snowplows?
Streamlined Dispatch Process Achieves Faster Response Times
The foreman found that dividing his attention between calling drivers and monitoring overall plowing procedures was simply taking too long. They decided to automate the calling process, allowing the foreman to focus on monitoring operations. WIN-911’s alarm notification software—already being used by the town’s water utility department—became an obvious choice to automate the snowplow dispatch process.
Thanks to its sophisticated logic engine, WIN-911 was able to filter, escalate, and assign alarm notifications to the appropriate personnel.
“If the weather forecast is predicting snow overnight, the foreman can check to see who will be available in order to set the callout list in advance. Then, when the time comes, he only has to hit the submit button to start the callout. No more looking up phone numbers at 3:00AM,” says Tom Hupp, manager of technical support for the Village.
WIN-911 Integrated with Wonderware HMI
WIN-911 seamlessly integrated with Wonderware HMI, allowing the foreman to simply check off the names of available drivers in the Wonderware HMI and easily send an automated notification to the selected plow drivers.
Snowplow drivers first receive the notifications on their cell phones. If the notifications go unacknowledged twice, the call will then be routed to the driver’s home phone number. At the public works department, the foreman is able to see who has and has not responded. WIN-911 also keeps record of all the calls in order to eliminate discrepancies.
By utilizing WIN-911 alarm notification software, the Village has been able to save more than an hour of phone calls and callbacks. The foreman is now free to focus on monitoring the plow operations for more efficient snow removal, allowing everyone in the Village of Pleasant Prairie to continue life as usual, even in bad weather.
