NetNumen™ eFlow Enables Operational Visibility and Intelligence

Rapidly developing services and increasing network complexity are increasing the workload and difficulty of network operations. Users are also more demanding on QoS, and field engineers have to respond to user requests immediately with standardized and specialized services. Remote real-time scheduling and control strengthen the control efforts at the operation end, ensuring that standardized service processes are carried out, to instantly spot personnel, tools, and to find out their moving direction as well.
ZTE's NetNumen™ eFlow hand-held operations management platform uses electronic and smart means to support comprehensive daily operational activities. The eFlow system has a flexible process engine and software architecture that supports both traditional PC access and mobile terminal app access to meet the demands of mobile operation. In the mobile terminal, customized and optimized functions are introduced to help operations teams standardize their processes, manage inspection tasks, control operations assets and spare parts inventory, and output operations reports. This improves operational efficiency.

Multi-Scenario Mobile Operations Management Platform

ZTE's NetNumen™ eFlow operations management platform has a flexible architecture that integrates the management of processes, assets, spare parts, and accessories. It can be used in multiple operations scenarios.
●  NetNumen™ eFlow MOP (Mobile Operation Platform): A handheld operations platform with an application used by on-site operations engineers to check and handle tasks, record the work track, and collect and report work results at any time and place. The platform assisting the operations team analyzes how efficiency can be improved and how factual inspection results can be output.
●  NetNumen™ eFlow WFM (Workforce Management): This tool provides regional operations management, including management of assets, spare parts, accessories, shifts, tools, instruments, and vehicles. It also manages tasks and vehicles to improve efficiency of regional operations.
●  NetNumen™ eFlow SPM (Service Problem Management): This tool is used to manage network failure work orders, change requests, and inspection plans to assign tasks and record purposes in ways other than the traditional manual, call-making and paper-work approaches.

Efficient Service at Any Time and Place

By extending operations tasks to the handset terminals, the eFlow platform breaks the limitations of time and space, which are faced by desktop computers, to deliver real-time operations services. The handheld operations system provides GPS and two-dimensional code scanning to make man-machine interactions possible. Mobile assignment and fulfillment of tasks make operations more efficient and tasks more apparent. In addition, the eFlow system can trace and control the entire operations process, which makes assets reception, positioning, repair and analysis more convenient. Figure 1 shows the interface of the handheld operations platform.

Intelligent Scheduling of Work Order and Reasonable Allocation of Resources

It used to take a long time to schedule an assignment manually because engineers have their own specialties. Managers have to know engineers well enough or make multiple phone calls to match an assignment with to the correct person. The drawbacks of the traditional mode are low resource utilization and disproportionate workload and personnel.
With the intelligent eFlow terminal and GIS system, resource availability is controlled in real time, and a task can be matched with the right engineer and resources. In this way, a work order can be issued quickly, the proper amount of work can be assigned to every engineer, and scheduling is automatic.

Intelligent Navigation of the Task Path to Make Work Easy

operations engineers used to arrange their own work, which tends to result in delayed assignment of work orders and piling up of workload. However, the mobile operations application can help plan a task path intelligently according to the task level, engineer location, and task priority. This helps operations engineers perform their tasks according to the recommended path, which not only saves time on transportation but also improves work efficiency. 
ZTE's eFlow platform enables operations visible and analyzable through electronic data, accurate geographical positioning, abundant interaction capabilities and rich interfaces. The eFlow platform is now widely used by China Mobile, China Unicom, China Tower, and other overseas customers. It is pushing telecom operators into a lower-cost, higher-efficiency "handheld" operations era.