Modifi
Codeless Mobile Apps for Workforce Transformation

The workspace is no longer defined by traditional brick-and-mortar walls. In the highly distributed workplace spectrum, as gig economy and the Uber “on-demand” model becomes more pervasive, a tool that empowers this new kind of workforce to be effective is what best summarizes Modifi’s value proposition.“At the core, we provide a collaboration and operational tool for workforce transformation,” says Jim Poss, CEO of Modifi.

Modifi provides a codeless app building engine for field experts with minimum computer skills to develop their own sophisticated application. With this, the company is able to bridge the gaps between field experts and the coding necessary to build sophisticated apps quickly, to track, and manage their team’s daily activities. “‘You are the hero, we provide the cape,’ best describes our approach,” says Poss.

Modifi’s IOT engine allows experts to gather sensor data from smartphone or external sensors and model them in the applications they build. The human inputs layered with sensor data provides for a rich ecosystem of contextual data that feed Modifi’s Machine Learning models to bubble up insights and forecasts.

Bearing testimony to the company’s expertise in workforce transformation is a retailer, headquartered in Seattle. With large distribution centers around the country, the company was paying millions of dollars to a third-party logistics provider for overseeing goods distribution, which had been clouded in uncertainty. In order to present a true picture, Modifi deployed their mobile app on Android phones and simplified the UI of the phone screen for the truck drivers by creating two soft buttons, red for pick up and green for drop off.

Over a period of 10 months, millions of sensor data points were collected, which included thousands of pickup and drop off activities. Upon analysis, it was shocking to realize that the workforce was heavily under-utilized with the drivers working for just 18 minutes in an hour on average.

You are the hero, while we provide the cape

Weighing numerous options, now armed with the data, the company decided to redeploy drivers during their idle time in the shipping process, resulting in the efficient utilization of the workforce. “For many organizations, 70 percent of costs are human-related, that makes it crucial to focus on workforce optimization and efficiency,” remarks Poss.

He cites an instance where the Modifi mobile application proves its mettle in empowering the workforce to carry out their job effectively. For instance, to deploy or fix a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) machine, it is no longer required to depend on a highly-skilled service technician. With Modifi’s solution, any technician can fix the machine with a little “digital assistance.” All they have to do is place the phone on top of the machine and scan the barcode. The vibration patterns and sound will be analyzed by Modifi’s app deployed in the service manager’s phone to determine the exact fault of the machine. The technician can be walked through a step-by-step prescriptive and pre-designed path to figure out what is wrong with the HVAC and help him fix it. With the help of analytics at the web backend, service managers can view KPIs and ascertain at what speed tasks are performed, frequency, and type of issues, and figure out the reason for delays, and schedule the next tasks accordingly.

The Modifi team aims to build systems that become industry experts in multiple fields. The company sees the most potential in working with gig economy workforces who can tackle any task on the basis of the instructions and the tools provided by Modifi. Another area that the company is focused on is generic supervised learning systems, a machine learning system that empowers gig economy workers and technicians with structured, tagged, and contextualized data. People become more informed, more effective…in other words, heroes.