GIS and Augmented Reality applied to Field Service made available to digital multiutilities

Workforce Management is a business sector that can definitely benefit from the use of new technologies. Nevertheless, the innovation process had so far been slowed down by the considerable number of resources operating on field and by the risks involved with equipping them with mobile consumer devices (they would surely end up breaking, loosing, stealing …). In the last couple of years, a handful of visionary ICT companies, backed by far-sighted customers, decided to revert the conservative trend and introduce up-to-date technology, thus advancing innovation in the WFM process. As a result, technicians have been provided with mobile consumer devices (iPad, smartphones, …) and wearables (smart glasses, smartphones, …). Furthermore, Augmented Reality and GIS capabilities have been integrated in the mobile APP to offer the maximum support possible when on field. Indoor and outdoor positioning and navigation, off-road navigation, shape recognition, drones, and new frontiers such as Microsoft HoloLens, Kinect and Google Tango, are the near future of mobile technology. Beside the revolution undergone by field technologies, sophisticated scheduling Geoalgorithms have been added server side, in order to optimize the agenda of technicians, as well as amazing GIS tools and connectors to main ERPs and CRMs (e.g. SAP, IBM Maximo, Salesforce Dynamics, …). The purpose of the present paper is to outline the state of the art of the aforementioned technologies applied to WFM and made available to utilities. A case history of Italgas and the project GAStoGO is also included

Logic Programming Applications: What Are the Abstractions and Implementations?

This article presents an overview of applications of logic programming, classifying them based on the abstractions and implementations of logic languages that support the applications. The three key abstractions are join, recursion, and constraint. Their essential implementations are for-loops, fixed points, and backtracking, respectively. The corresponding kinds of applications are database queries, inductive analysis, and combinatorial search, respectively. We also discuss language extensions and programming paradigms, summarize example application problems by application areas, and touch on example systems that support variants of the abstractions with different implementations

Embracing Automation: Boosting Productivity and Efficiency in the Tech Sector

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceThis project explores the implementation of process automation within a tech company to streamline and optimize the Sev ABC Rota process, which involves the manual handling of critical support tickets. The current manual system poses challenges such as data entry errors, time consumption, and delays in system updates, necessitating the urgent need for automation. Power Automate, along with connectors like Excel, Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, is utilized to automate the Sev ABC Rota process. The automation includes creating and updating data in a SharePoint list, removing engineers from the daily queue, sending email notifications, and creating a Teams group chat. The choice of Power Automate is based on its no-code functionality and compatibility with Microsoft connectors, ensuring simplicity, time savings, and increased productivity. The paper discusses the benefits and challenges of process automation and automated workflows, emphasizing their impact on productivity, cost reduction, accuracy, and customer satisfaction. Various metrics and assessment techniques, including cycle time, throughput, error rates, cost savings, and customer satisfaction, are proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of automated workflows. Additionally, emerging trends in automation, such as the combination of cognitive technologies, adoption of intelligent automation, cloud computing, and low code/no-code platforms, are discussed. The importance of change management and employee engagement in successful automation implementation is highlighted, emphasizing the need for a culture of ongoing learning and collaboration. Overall, this paper provides insights into the implementation and evaluation of process automation in the tech industry, offering a roadmap for organizations seeking to enhance efficiency and optimize operations