Swiss Federal Railways transforms its workforce with Android Enterprise

Editor’s note: Melkon Toroysan is the mobile solutions architect with Swiss Federal Railways.

At Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), mobility is the key to how our teams stay connected and fulfill our mission as the public rail transport agency in Switzerland. We strive to provide a safe and pleasant journey for passengers and reliable transport for cargo. Many of our 33,000 employees are on the frontline of helping customers, keeping the trains running smoothly and doing the critical maintenance work to ensure our infrastructure is always in optimal condition. 

The foundation behind all this is the technology that enables our employees to communicate with each other, serve our customers and get up-to-the-minute information. With Android Enterprise, we now have the ability to choose a diverse selection of devices and integrate them into a common management system, along with the security and privacy we require.

Enhancing frontline work with Android

When evaluating our device strategy, we spent significant time in the field considering how our teams worked and what opportunities there would be to modernize workflows. We wanted to streamline much of our work through internal apps and provide devices to employees who had not been assigned one before. 

Android Enterprise allowed us to do all of this. Now our IT team manages over 24,000 devices, with a mix of tablets and smartphones tailored to individual job roles. We chose Android Enterprise Recommended devices so we’d have guaranteed operating system and security updates, and we replaced a fair amount of outdated hardware. 

Our devices are essential for nearly everyone across the organization; employees can report maintenance issues, answer messages and access our collaboration tools. This takes place across over 70 internal enterprise apps we distribute and maintain through managed Google Play.

For example, our train conductors use their smartphones to stay on top of departure information, communicate with others to know what details to announce before departing. Our conductors use their devices to issue and check tickets with an NFC scanner. They also get real-time information about departures and arrivals to give passengers up-to-date information. And every member of our maintenance team uses an Android Enterprise Recommended smartphone to get their daily assignments, mark them complete and note necessary repairs they detect. Teams are using their Android devices to take pictures of needed repairs to provide better details about what needs to be fixed.

Security and privacy

Many of our devices are deployed with the Android work profile, which means employees can use the same device for personal apps and data without compromising their privacy. Our teams appreciate the separation of their company apps in a dedicated work tab, and our IT team has the enterprise tools they require to help secure our corporate apps in the work profile. This became even more important as the pandemic took hold—we relied heavily on mobility to stay connected and work safely. 

We’ll continue to explore how Android can improve our teams’ communication and collaboration. With Android Enterprise we’re confident in our ability to expand our device deployment and help our teams find new ways to be productive.