Business opportunity
As a trusted energy provider in Alberta, Canada, ATCO is committed to delivering safe and reliable energy to communities—today and for generations to come.
Part of this commitment is being able to operate and maintain their own fleet of mobile cranes to support many active job sites in Alberta. Before they can be used, the team performs multi-point inspections and verifies the capacity and readiness for the crane to bear loads for each day’s work. This process keeps themselves, the community and their infrastructure safe.
Previously, the inspections were recorded in paper logbooks stored in the trucks that haul the cranes. The team would manually perform load calculations based on equipment specifications and engineering requests—which was subject to human error. Supervisors would also have to be on site to verify inspections, which could add time to the project.
Digitizing inspections and automating load calculations could improve the accuracy of the workflow, which would also increase the safety at job sites.
Technical challenge
ATCO’s construction activities span across more than 50 locations with limited or no connectivity. With many inspectors traveling to sites, the team needed a reliable solution that would work offline and online as well as safeguard data integrity.
Our solution
Together, ATCO and Kyndryl designed and Kyndryl built a mobile and desktop app for crane inspections. To accommodate for patchy connectivity, the app was created to be fully functional in offline mode, automatically synchronizing data when connection becomes available. In case inspections reveal needed repairs, maintenance and service requests (including images) are immediately relayed to engineering teams for work, reducing downtime of the equipment. To reduce time in inspections, the app provides checklists tailored to each crane model. Crews have efficient, secure, and consistent access to data centrally stored in Microsoft Azure, streamlining crane-related preparations. Supervisors can remotely review status details, make notes, and sign-off when ready.
The power of partnership
The team developed the application for ATCO using the Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Power Automate Flows, which handles the business processes and notifications for the crane inspections and maintenance activity. The application combined those technologies to drive efficiency and increase safety in daily ATCO work site operations.
What progress looks like
By digitalizing crane inspections and work site load calculations, ATCO has increased safety and efficiency at their job sites.
- Reduced the risk of manual error with guided checklists for inspections and automated load calculations.
- 20% increased efficiency of daily inspections reduces expensive work delays.
- 100% data availability and backup.
- Elimination of paper and printing supplies contribute to ESG goals.
