Reports say NBN Co accidentally flooded its own workforce scheduling system. 

The company behind the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) has been having troubles with its workforce scheduling system, which is meant to link a legion of workers and contractors with various jobs constructing and maintaining the network. 

Earlier this month, NBN Co chief operating officer Kathrine Dyer announced; “the first phase of the rollout of the workforce scheduling system went well in South Australia and Tasmania, however the company encountered a number of issues with phase two of the rollout of in NSW and Victoria”.

Questions were asked about what had changed between the first and second phases of the rollout of the system.

Ms Dyer later told senate estimates it was a capacity and load issue, caused by a high number of people physically using the system and the volumes of data they were inputting. 

Essentially, NBN Co had brought in too many users at once and asked them to record too much data from the field. 

The same change management process was not carried over to phase two of the rollout.

“What changed - or my reflection is - in South Australia and Tasmania a much smaller volume of work came in, [and there was] a lot more direct hand-holding, if you like, with the technicians in relation to the changeover from one system to the next,” Ms Dyer said.

“[When] we then went to Victoria, we did initially see a usability impact from a technician’s point of view but it very quickly recovered within one-to-two weeks. 

“When NSW was added, overall it doubled the amount of contractors. 

“We then had the issues around functionality where it wasn’t syncing properly, so therefore it caused a poor experience for [technicians and subcontractors].”

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