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City West Works was established as a subsidiary of City West Housing Trust in April 2013 and carries out maintenance works on the housing association’s 14,600 homes across West Salford.

In its first year, the City West Works carried out almost 50,000 repairs jobs and answered more than 150,000 calls in its service centre.

The challenge

City West Works has a range of tradesman from roofers to electricians working in their team, all playing key roles in maintaining strong customer relations and working to improve customer homes. With many tradesmen on the road daily, City West Works needed a solution that could not only track their location but help reduce CO2 emissions and rising fuel costs.

The solution

Masternaut offered City West Works a solution that could provide benefits above and beyond simple vehicle tracking. Masternaut’s solution can monitor for poor driving habits through a points system where drivers are scored against vehicle economy and driving behaviour, alerting them to any bad manoeuvres they make.

Co-ordination challenges were also minimised with at-a-glance visibility of vehicle whereabouts at any given time.

The outcome

Since implementing Masternaut’s solution, City West Works has seen economical improvements in employee driving habits.  The solution has been installed across 105 of City West Works’ vehicles, with a plan to extend the contract for another two years.

Managers receive weekly email reports that accurately monitor and record the behaviour of their drivers and determine those who are exhibiting the best driving performance. Poor driving habits such as harsh; cornering, breaking, acceleration and speeding are all measured and put forward in these reports. Managers can then approach drivers performing poorly and discuss ways of improving their driving with guidance from Masternaut. These reports not only helped the managers gain a good overview of their team’s driver behaviour but also aided with their KPIs.

The Masternaut solution also provides an additional HR benefit with managers being able to remotely monitor their employees’ location in real time therefore providing added security. The solution can also help provide evidence against claims where customers state a tradesman has not turned up to a job.

Commenting on the results John Ashworth, Facilities Officer at City West Works said:

“Cutting down CO2 emissions and reducing fuel costs have been high priorities for us. We’ve saved just short of £17,000 in fuel alone and reduced CO2 emissions by 40.6 tonnes thanks to Masternaut’s solution. The reports Masternaut provide us with allows managers to see how drivers are wasting fuel and put a stop to this. Since April last year we have also started receiving a second report from Masternaut on a month to month basis showing how much fuel and Co2 savings we have made.

We chose Masternaut following a full process and when compared against competitors, Masternaut was the overall better choice against other tenders.” 

 

To help customers monitor and manage their energy usage, British Gas is rolling out smart meters as standard to homes and businesses across Britain by 2020, as part of a Government mandate. A team of 1200 field engineers (known as Smart Energy Experts) are responsible for this task. To work efficiently, these Smart Energy Experts need appropriate IT devices to support them, but the existing tablet estate was aging, and at the limit of its designed capability....

Computacenter solution

British Gas partnered with Computacenter to help upgrade its tablet estate to Dell devices running Windows 8. Computacenter was responsible for sourcing, testing, pre-configuring and asset tagging the devices before delivering them as required to British Gas sites. The project was successfully completed on time to aggressive timescales.

Results

Smart Energy Experts use the new tablets to support every stage of the smart meter installation process. This includes receiving their jobs and updates through the day, workflow through different types of jobs, as well as the commissioning activities for smart gas and electricity meters. Using the new devices has simplified their day-to-day tasks, and improved employee satisfaction, productivity and customer service. This will help British Gas achieve its goal of ensuring the smart meter installation is a seamless experience for its customers.

Customer profile: Powering homes and business across the UK

British Gas is the UK's leading energy supplier, and serves around 12 million homes in Britain – nearly half the country's homes – as well as providing energy to one million UK businesses.  British Gas provides "value for money, dedicated customer service, innovative energy solutions and the highest quality Home Services expertise in the country."

Business challenge: Helping customers be smarter about energy usage

By 2020 smart meters will be rolled out as standard across the country as part of a Government initiative, replacing current gas and electricity meters. British Gas adopted a strategy to introduce smart meters early in order to bring the benefits to customers as soon as possible, and currently leads the industry with more than one million meters already installed in customers’ homes and businesses.

Each home receives a smart gas meter, a smart electricity meter and a smart energy monitor. Smart meters communicate how much energy is being used to a smart energy monitor so customers can see their energy use and its costs in pounds and pence in near real-time. The smart meters also record energy use at up to half-hourly intervals and send these readings back to the energy supplier, once a day, putting an end to estimated bills.

Alan Fairhurst, Technical Consulting Manager with British Gas Strategic Systems, explains: “British Gas has already installed over a million smart meters into homes and businesses, and the roll-out is gathering pace as we look towards the Government deadline of 2020.”

To ensure British Gas can achieve this goal and safeguard the quality of customer services, the Smart Energy Experts need to be equipped with the right tools. “The IT devices they use have a big impact on their productivity. We need them to be able to focus on their customers and the job in hand, without worrying about IT issues and downtime,” says Alan.

The team was using tablet devices that were originally selected for their toughness, but the devices lacked the features and ease of use needed to maximise productivity.

Computacenter solution: New Windows 8 tablets for 1200 Smart Energy Experts

British Gas partnered with Computacenter to upgrade the tablet estate. “We have worked with Computacenter for a number of years,” explains Alan. “Mass device change is not our core business, so when it comes to projects such as this, we need a partner with expertise and experience, such as Computacenter.”

Following an internal exercise to evaluate the devices available on the market, British Gas turned to Computacenter to help procure and build the selected Dell Latitude 10 tablets, which run the Windows 8 operating system.

Computacenter helped British Gas negotiate pricing with Dell, and from June 2013 took responsibility for building and delivering the new devices over a four-month period. “Computacenter managed the logistics of the project, which included monitoring and tracking shipments to ensure they arrived on assigned dates so we could meet our tight deployment deadlines,” comments Alan.

Following delivery at Computacenter’s Hatfield Configuration Centre, each device was BIOS-tested, pre-configured and asset tagged. They were then packed with accessories, including a ruggedised Griffin survivor case, and retained at Computacenter’s buy and store facilities until British Gas required delivery.

Results: Improved engineer satisfaction and customer experience

By partnering with Computacenter, British Gas was able to mitigate the risks associated with deploying such a large number of devices within a short timeframe. “It was quite an aggressive project where we had to get the new tablets out to our Smart Energy Experts quickly and get it right first time,” confirms Alan. “With Computacenter’s expertise and experience, we were able to successfully complete the project to deadline without having to invest in additional resources and space.”

As a result of working with Computacenter, British Gas has been able to:

Reduce project risks: Computacenter’s commitment to British Gas’s tight deadlines, vendor relationships and best practices helped ensure the project was a success.

Simplify the installation of smart meters: The British Gas Smart Energy Experts use the new tablets every day when installing smart meters. They receive full details of each property and task, and track the progress of every job, via the tablets. The devices are also used to take photos of the meters in location for future records.

Improve engineer productivity: The enterprise-grade Windows 8 tablets bridge the gap between the corporate and consumer world, combining the reliability of a corporate device with the ease-of-use of a consumer interface. This not only simplified training, but also maximises productivity on a daily basis.

Increase employee satisfaction: Although corporately owned, the devices are personally enabled so Smart Energy Experts have an incentive to look after the tablets. They also enable them to take advantage of a growing range of helpful apps.

Enhance customer service: As Smart Energy Experts can access all the details they need about each customer and site quickly and easily, they can provide a better informed and more efficient service.  They are also able to demonstrate a number of British Gas services and products whilst at the customer premises.

“With support from Computacenter, our Smart Energy Experts have the tools they need for the job. They are happier, more motivated and able to provide better customer service,” concludes Alan. “This will help us achieve our goal of installing smart meters as standard to homes and businesses across the country by 2020.”

 

TCSJOHNHUXLEY is the world’s leading manufacturer and supplier of end-to-end live gaming solutions and services. The company offers the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of live gaming and electronic gaming products, from quality, handcrafted furniture through to cutting-edge technical equipment that enhances the overall gaming experience, profits and security.

The company prides itself on delivering the highest standards of service and support, with a comprehensive European Technical Support Centre based at Stoke-on-Trent, and a dedicated pan-European network of staff offering 24/7 technical support. Given the company’s continued growth, TCSJOHNHUXLEY was keen to update its service management technology infrastructure so that they had greater visibility across its Europe-wide service and support activities.

According to Rob Burgess, European Service Manager for TCSJOHNHUXLEY: “while we had evolved a fully functional scheduling system for our planned engineering activities - we knew we needed a more integrated solution, to give us visibility and the management information we needed to optimise our processes and really excel in customer service.

“It had become clear that adopting an end-to-end field service management encompassing customer contact, scheduling and mobile field service would give us the meaningful data that we needed to optimise performance. We were also keen to find a solution which would give us reports exactly as we required to allow us to optimise our business, rather than the standard reports that an off the shelf tool would provide”

After looking at a range of different solutions, TCSJOHNHUXLEY selected a cloud-based field service management solution from mplsystems that integrated all its customer contact, service management, parts management and engineer scheduling activities.

 

Available on a pay-per-use basis, mplsystems’ field service management solution directly addresses the three main barriers to field service efficiency: the need to combine disparate IT systems; the ability to schedule reactive engineering tasks alongside planned maintenance schedules; and efficiently highlighting ongoing issues in the field.

 

Combining off-the-shelf functionality with bespoke flexibility

“We selected an mplsystems field service management solution because it provided us with all the benefits and cost-effective performance of an off-the-shelf application, while also providing the ability for us to customise our new solution to match the specific requirements of the TCSJOHNHUXLEY business – particularly in the important area of reporting,” added Rob Burgess. “Combining the dynamic planning and scheduling of service activities with a dedicated application on our engineers’ tablet devices has allowed us to create our mplsystems-powered GEMS Global Engineers Management System that now gives us a true, real-time view of all maintenance activities and reactive calls across the business.”

According to Rob: “working with mplsystems is enabling us to bring our different customer contact, workflow, service management and field service operations together, providing TCSJOHNHUXLEY with the potential for driving efficiency and freeing us to deliver an even higher overall standard of service.”

Working with the mplsystems’ field service management allows the TCSJOHNHUXLEY service team to close the loop, improving efficiency all the way from the initial point of customer interaction through to fault resolution “With our previous more manual process, we wouldn’t necessarily have visibility of a repeat failure with a particular product or component. Now with our mplsystems field service solution we’re able to generate automatic alerts or analyse data to proactively replace components prior to failure or determine a manufacturing fix.”

For Rob Burgess and the TCSJOHNHUXLEY service team, the real benefits come through close analysis of the data unlocked through the mplsystems solution. “It’s all about the data, understanding what’s actually going on in the business and then sharing best practice behaviours and outcomes – both across our UK service team and also with our international operations.”

Business benefits:

• Achieving the best of both worlds – cost-effectiveness of an off-the-shelf field service management solution with the focused benefits of bespoke reporting
• Successful blending or both planned and reactive maintenance tasks – ability to optimise scheduling in real time
• Increased visibility of parts issues, enabling optimisation of overall stock levels and the ability to identify and routinely replace parts or components that fail more often – reducing overall callback rate
• Greater visibility and analysis of engineer schedules – more awareness of time required for fixes, travel time to customer sites,
• Escalation processes now in place, assigning technical specialists for repeat issues
• Better integration of field operations, with immediate service incident reporting via tablets

 

 

Overview: 

While most people are enjoying their summer holidays, the staff at GRITIT are hard at work getting ready for the long, cold winter months ahead. It’s the tough winters that GRITIT counts on as the UK’s leading provider of gritting services, supplying winter services protection and winter risk management services to organisations in the retail, commercial, financial, high security, industrial, logistics, health and education sectors.

With more than 166,000 service visits, of which 99.99 percent were successfully completed, maintaining a 99.2 percent customer satisfaction rate and the British Institute of Facilities Management Service Provider of the Year 2013 distinction, it’s clear that customer service is of supreme importance to GRITIT.

“We work from 6pm to 6am, so are an ‘unseen service’, therefore it is critical that we can track and manage our operatives on site and have the ability to guarantee to our customers that the services they requested have been completed,” said Brendon Petsch, IT Director at GRITIT.

“So confident are we of our service, and our ability to ensure customers’ sites are safe for the public and employees, we stand the liability for clients in the event of an accident or claim.”

Harnessing the Power of the Cloud to Manage Data:

To support this bold stance GRITIT accumulates millions of pieces of data during the course of a season and employs cloud-based telematics – also known as location intelligence – software from Telogis that works with its existing technology investments to identify the key pieces of data it needs to improve overall operations. The ability to create efficiencies within its workforce and streamline processes – particularly through the ubiquity of mobile devices – is passed on as an added value to GRITIT’s customers.

“Smartphones and handheld devices are the backbone of our business. Despite the phenomenal increase in usage and adoption of mobile devices and cloud based technologies in the last five years, the telematics software industry has not kept pace. That is where Telogis is different. The combination of its cloud/Software-as a-Service software platform and cutting edge mobile solutions means the very latest technology is always used,” said Petsch.

Platform Approach Supports Multiple Devices:

The first stage of the plan was to replace GRITIT’s existing systems with Telogis’ fully integrated, single platform for location intelligence. Previously GRITIT used two disparate systems, one for mobile device reporting and job allocation and the other for locating vehicles and assets. Getting the two systems to talk to each other in the past took some major software development.

The appeal of Telogis was the automatic integration of all of its solutions, so the initial implementation was smoother and the GRITIT team was up and running more quickly.

“Operationally, updating our systems to work with just one platform is great. The (Telogis) system works really well and is easy to use,” said Petsch. “The rest of the industry is still in the dark ages when it comes to smartphone and tablet software, whereas with Telogis we are able to use the very latest Android and iOS devices.”

Location Intelligence supports GRITIT operations in the Field:

GRITIT is now using numerous solutions as part of the  comprehensive Telogis platform: Telogis Fleet is used to track all vehicles during and after service for proof of attendance. As the vehicle arrives on site, the amount of data collected is increased to enable them to track exactly where the vehicle is within the site, as well as monitor driver behaviour like speeding, idling and out of hours use of the vehicle.

Telogis Progression offers real-time job creation, tracking, alerts, job reassignment if things don’t go to plan and job completion reporting. It also provides real-time alerts that notify GRITIT supervisors when drivers have completed work and validation that drivers were on the job site to complete their work. This helps them maintain their job completion rate throughout each shift. If staff are running behind, jobs can easily be assigned to other drivers by dragging and dropping a job onto another driver’s route, where it automatically shows up on his job list. At the end of the shift GRITIT performs a final check by reconciling completed jobs with the actual location of the vehicle at that time. This allows the company to maintain its gold-standard customer satisfaction rating.

Using Telogis Mobile running on a smartphone or other handheld device, drivers receive their job allocations and are able to report on each job, logging arrival and departure times, any issues and site conditions. Details specific to certain sites for example, site access codes, are stored in the Telogis system and supplied to the drivers as required. This way, drivers can easily convey site conditions by attaching photos to their form responses which provides easy confirmation for supervisors and customers that a site has been serviced to spec.

Additionally, GRITIT managers complete random site inspections to ensure quality is maintained, and they too report back to head office in real time. Because all the documentation received from the field is available within the Telogis systems in real time these inspections can take place within minutes of jobs being completed. In this way, if there are any issues onsite such as a leaking pipe or someone that shouldn’t be there, the client is alerted immediately.

Powerful Real-time Reporting Provides Proof of Service:

Strong reporting is a key part of the Telogis platform, and an integral part of GRITIT’s service to its customers. With Telogis GRITIT is now able to build its own customised reports to exactly match client requirements.

Unlike most other organisations in the industry, GRITIT uses its tracking data proactively to provide proof of service, and as part of its daily reporting to clients. If any job does not go ahead as expected, an alert is produced by the Telogis system, enabling GRITIT’s management team to resolve the issue and alert the customer as necessary in real time.

Next Step – online tracking for the customer:

The next phase of the implementation is to further integrate the Telogis platform with GRITIT’s business systems, using Telogis Data Exchange (TDE). Ultimately this will enable the collection of information from drivers’ onsite via mobile devices that will pass through the entire organisation seamlessly such as providing information to contracts, finance/invoicing, and HR.

Brendon Petsch sums up; “It is still relatively early days with the Telogis system, but everything is running well and we are looking forward to a long and successful partnership. Ultimately GRITIT would like to provide live tracking data to our customers through Telogis Live, so that they can see for themselves exactly what is happening on site. We are proud to be taking this innovative approach and Telogis is the ideal partner to help us realise our business goals.”

 

 

Robert Woodhead is an award winning Construction Company operating across the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. Growing steadily since its inception in 1946, Robert Woodhead have developed an impressive customer portfolio and now deliver multi million pound contracts  to some of the largest public and commercial organisations in the UK.

To help meet their rigorous customer service targets, Robert Woodhead decided to develop its service management offering as ‘Woodhead One’ – a specialist operation that delivers responsive repairs and maintenance. As part of the business strategy and to support the expanding repairs and maintenance business, the company knew it would have to optimise its customer contact and scheduling activities if it was to successfully balance excellent customer service with high quality operational performance.

Previously using manual spreadsheets and paper based job allocation, the business wanted a solution that would manage the end-to-end field service operation. To successfully achieve these project goals, Robert Woodhead selected mplsystems to design and deliver a seamless end-to-end field service management solution that would include the helpdesk, scheduling and mobile field service. The solution would need to integrate with existing systems and enhance business processes.

In response to customer demand and to alleviate the volume of service requests going through the helpdesk, mplsystems designed a customised self-service portal that allowed clients to log and track jobs themselves. The portal gave customers full visibility of their service requests and meant they could access the portal at any time without having to call or email the help desk.

Once the request has been made, the helpdesk were able to view real time information on the location and status of mobile field workers and to fully optimise job allocation and instantly send a notification update to the field worker via mplsystems customised mobile app technology.

This solution simplifies the service management process whilst improving efficiencies for both Woodhead One staff and their valued customers. Since implementing the solution Woodhead One have experienced significant business growth and 100% increase in reactive job requests in just two years. The portal now manages more than 75% of these reactive service requests, allowing Woodhead One to reduce their outbound call costs, increase service response times and reduce the admin load on the service helpdesk.

Customers no longer have to call or email the service desk to request a job, they are able to access the portal 24/7 and have full visibility of their request from initiation to completion. Clients can also now effectively measure their job requests through instant reporting from the portal and have full visibility of billing to fully understand associated costs, meaning they too can optimise their business operations.

Stephen Gribby, Repairs and Maintenance Director, Woodhead One commented 

“The team at Woodhead One see our solution from mplsystems as a true differentiator and a feature that is now helping us win new business. We are continuously reviewing our service delivery efforts and the next stage of the project is to encompass our payments system into the portal to achieve a more unified approach across the business”

To find out more you can read the full case study here

 

 

‘Congratulations! You grew your service business by 25% last year…but how much money did you make?!’

This is the dilemma we often hear when talking to disappointed and frustrated managers.

In our experience this is especially true for organisations undergoing rapid change or growth through acquisition. Their Service Delivery Processes have not been built on a solid foundation and they experience large variations in how services are delivered from the excellent to the appalling.

Increasingly there are many new service management and mobile solutions on the market that bring transparency to the operations. Although they are a critical ‘enabler’, they do not address the root cause of the problem. We know that for a company to successfully industrialise its back office and deliver a consistent customer experience, it is key to have a clear vision of the:-

 

• End to End business processes
• Service management practices
• People competencies
• Performance management systems
• IT requirements

 

These building blocks are not only the basis for ensuring the existing service delivery model can be profitable, they will also de-risk the introduction of new service offerings.

Take one of the company’s that has featured in this blog series, Bobst SA.

Stephan Maerz, Head of the Service Business Unit faced a classic post acquisition situation. Bobst were working with seven different brands globally, all functioning under different management models; services weren’t aligned, standards and pricing were disparate. If the answer to growth lay in their services, they needed a global plan.

In March 2012, the Bobst executive team decided to create a single One Bobst brand. In July 2012, they started to define and execute a global service transformation programme. The brand-driven strategy they developed required a globally consistent customer experience, and that meant standardisation.  But unifying operations however, wasn’t so simple. The solution? Create a Book of Service Standards, a global undertaking requiring agreement from every regional and functional head. Modes of working were so variable, the project could have taken years. But by working with a 3^rd party with access to proven models and best practice, it took only three months to agree on one model.

A lot of people said it couldn’t be done and that a global service strategy would not work on a local level. Bobst demonstrated that by using a component based service factory model, it is is possible to take a fragmented operation and build a common documented vision of how the business should operate. In this way Bobst has built the basis for a sustainable and profitable service business. The next challenge is to build a completely new IT architecture to make the book of standards an operational reality.

If you would like to know more about this case study or the Component Based Service Factory, use this link to go to the Noventum website at www.noventum.eu.

Or you can meet us in person in May at the Servitisation Conference at Aston Business School or the Service Management Expo at the the London ExCeL where we will be sharing more experiences on how to achieve business growth through services.

Nick Frank is a service specialist with Noventum Service Management

Background

Travis Perkins plc is the UK’s largest supplier to the building and construction market, with a national network of more than 1,900 branches and annual turnover of £5 billion. The organisation is home to businesses including Travis Perkins, Wickes, BSS Industrual, Toolstation and Tile Giant, and has supplied building materials to the trade and home improvers for over 200 years.

The Travis Perkins Group uses Masternaut’s technology across its 3,000-strong commercial fleet.

Masternaut has been an integral part of the Group’s day-to-day fleet operations for some time. The telematics system is used across the fleet to improve fleet efficiency and customer service, cut costs and reduce emissions. Since using the technology, Travis Perkins has seen a reduction in fuel costs of over £1.4million to-date, a 70% daily reduction in vehicle idling, as well as reduced depot turnaround times from 45 minutes to an average 25 minutes.

The organisation is constantly looking for new ways to improve its performance across all divisions of the business.

The Group’s Transport department has implemented a number of initiatives to improve the safety of its drivers. One of these initiatives is the Driver of the Year award, an annual nationwide competition open to all drivers in all businesses across the Travis Perkins Group. The competition aims to identify and acknowledge the organisation’s safest driver. More recently, the company has introduced a Group-wide ‘Safer Roads’ policy to further improve driver safety awareness and identify drivers who require additional coaching.

Challenge

In order to introduce these initiatives, Travis Perkins needed a way to accurately monitor and record the behaviour of its drivers and determine those who are exhibiting the best driving performance across the group.

This information needed to be available in real-time, to promote and enable improved safety and driver awareness ‘on-the-job’, as well as being recorded in highly detailed retrospective reports. With thousands of drivers across the organisation involved in both initiatives, these reports needed to offer the functionality to drill down into individual driver performance, as well as providing top-level visibility into overall trends in order to develop ranked league tables.

The focus on safety awareness associated with the Safer Roads initiative meant that fleet and HR managers also required a system that could highlight individual driver habits, such as harsh braking, speeding or idling.

Solution

Working very closely with a Masternaut consultant, the Travis Perkins Group has developed both initiatives with the help of intelligence generated by Masternaut technology.

For the Driver of the Year award, a shortlist of suitable drivers is drawn from each Group business before benchmarking these drivers against each other during an intensive two-month monitoring period. This period relies heavily on Masternaut’s telematics systems to monitor each driver against set criteria in order to compare driver performance. Each criterion carries a certain weight, and Fleet and HR managers can modify the emphasis placed on a driver ‘event’, tailored to the particular business requirements of that business or Division.

Similarly, the Safer Roads initiative also uses data provided by Masternaut technology to identify drivers that show signs of requiring one-to-one coaching.

All information generated by Masternaut is transmitted from the vehicle in real-time, as well as being compiled into reports which are delivered back to the Group’s Head Office for full retrospective analysis.

Results

Together, the two initiatives have led to a significant increase in health and safety awareness and driving best practice across the Travis Perkins Group, and helping to improve the safety of the organisation’s drivers and other road users. Those exhibiting habits such as speeding, idling, harsh braking and accelerating are quickly identified so that the appropriate ‘on the road’ coaching sessions can be arranged with one of the Group’s 16 dedicated risk assessors.

As well as receiving formal coaching, drivers also receive real-time training via Masternaut’s in-cab light bar, which instantly alerts the driver when they need to alter what they are doing – whether they need to slow down or brake less harshly.

As a result, accident figures over the last 5 years have reduced.

Using Masternaut’s technology as the backbone for these initiatives also means that, where previously HR policies around driver safety monitoring and training were very siloed to particular divisions or areas of the business, the whole organisation now has one consistent, consolidated approach.

Commenting on the success of the partnership Richard Horton, Head of Transport Development, Travis Perkins said: 

“We have worked closely with Masternaut for a number of years, and the organisation has become an integral part of our business. And it’s not just our transport department that sees the benefits. We have seen tangible benefits across the whole of the organisation and direct impact on our bottom line, with significant cost savings year-on-year.

The ‘Driver of the Year’ and ‘Safer Roads’ are two examples of initiatives based on Masternaut’s technology which go way beyond straight forward vehicle tracking. The two initiatives are allowing us to raise awareness of driver safety, and the importance of responsible driving across the business – from HGVs through to light commercial vehicles.

Our drivers are not only more conscious of how they are performing behind the wheel, they’re motivated and incentivised. When the Driver of the Year award comes around each year there’s a great sense of healthy competition among the whole team – and that’s fantastic to see!”

Background: Exel Computer Systems

The developing service industry requires improved quality through constant adaption.

Exel Computer Systems has brought increasingly sophisticated technology into the Service Management arena providing Software and expertise. There is no doubt that with skilled support, this technology will drive significant innovation into thought-leading organisations such as Triton Showers, who are prepared to open their minds to new ways of working and effectively use technological innovation. More than ten years ago Triton Showers realised that to be successful as a service-led business they had to be more agile and ready to adapt to the rapidly changing industry environment they faced.

To derive significant success from technological developments requires more than good luck, and unless companies are prepared to invest sufficient money, time and energy into getting it right, success will not follow. Most importantly the need to invest in the right staff, with the right training, equipment and business tools. But just as important is the need to join forces with a supplier who has made significant investment in developing leading-edge Service Software and can show innovation in the solution. Providing such an excellent product to a skilled workforce can bring to the industry leading edge skills, cost effective and excellent delivery, and set standards in the Industry.

Background: Triton Showers

Triton Showers has been producing high quality products since its inception in 1975, and is now one of the largest and best known in the field in the UK. In that time the company has invested in technological solutions and unwaveringly on recruiting high calibre staff to provide their customers with the best customer service possible. In addition to their success in future-proofing the technological aspects of their software solution by working closely with their software supplier and partner, they have been able to take advantage of the growing familiarity and acceptance of the technology by all their staff across  the business, to help their staff understand the needs and skills required of their new roles.

Like many other businesses over this time, Triton Showers has had to cope with a number of key changes including a shift from client-based solutions to browser-based, and from hardware-specific solutions into platform and product-independent solutions. Exel Computer Systems has incorporated all of these into their Eagle Field Service solution, taking in their stride the acceleration of technological development, the rapid and significant convergence of 'Mobile Communications', 'Browser-based software' and 'The Cloud' to keep abreast of technology, devices and software solutions across their customer's business. Triton Showers has grasped the opportunity to work with a very modern leading-edge supplier, critical in this complex environment to ensure the quality of the solution and the speed of implementation.

Preparing for the Journey

The service industry has developed markedly over the last 10 years, and Triton Showers has been at the forefront of this development; introducing a sophisticated call-centre supported by the latest scheduling and despatching software, as well as a comprehensive financial package. In the last three years, investing in developing and securing a powerful solution provided and supported by their highly skilled partner Exel, they have significantly updated their software solution onto one of the most modern platforms.

Most recently, Triton Showers have invested in mobile CRM and customer self-help mechanisms, as it has become obvious that the customer wants to use this form of communication. The key customer requirements across the industry are:

• immediate response time
• 24x7 access to self help to resolve issues themselves
• access to an engineer on line or in a forum or chat room

What has been Key to Triton Shower's success?

Working closely with Exel has provided them with a partner that has not only supplied the required Software to take the business into the future, but helped them to identify the most important profit levers within their business:

• Move from  cost-cutting to technology-driven process improvement and focus on customers
• Recognise that culture change within the organisation and across society is having more impact than specific technology devices, as the devices become more readily assimilated into the day-to-day environment
• Staff understanding the changes they have to make in their role as a result of the latest software and hardware solution
• Helping their staff at all levels to work differently, to deal with the local environment within the changing big picture.

The Challenge

Introducing a new software solution and associated hardware requires process change, so from the start there was a requirement that support staff understand the changes necessary in their role. The staff needed to accept that processes would be different and it was beneficial to get the processes stable and tested as soon as possible within the new solution:  They would have to see the big picture of the business process as well as demonstrate a local understanding.

Triton Showers has also recognised that the consumer market in which they work has changed its attitude towards the sovereignty of the customer, and that a significant shift of mind-set within the customer requires Triton Showers to work very differently, at all levels, to maintain control.

Historically, the quality of service was delivered contractually through service level agreements, ensuring the supplier would deliver within certain parameters. The agreement would be with the individual customer and not normally visible to anyone else, with the advent of Facebook, Linked-in and Twitter this situation has changed completely, and producing a very confused picture engendering significant potential for mis-communication, putting considerable pressure onto the supplier.  Included with this is the ability for the customer to broadcast their opinion of the service they have received.

The supplier has to have much better access to the customer experience through varied and reliable sources of information, including mobile CRM, so that data can be automatically collected by the hardware and software carried by the engineer, freeing the engineer to focus on fixing the customer, confident that all the data is captured correctly.  The engineer has to be trained and given the responsibility to gather customer information, through effective listening and good questioning. The engineer cannot allocate any more time to the customer, so information gathering has to be done during the fix (including up-grading customer value, providing new value and understanding issues facing the customer, their changing needs and if possible consulting on the customer’s processes to better serve them next time).

Supplier support and added value

Working closely and confidently with their software supplier, Triton Showers were able to significantly develop their customer interaction process to facilitate the capture of required information, to build up a picture of the customer in order to better respond to their needs and reduce the cost of provision while improving the quality.  In addition Eagle Field Service provided effective future-proofing to:

• Accommodate changes in technology, particularly the impact of mobile connectivity
• Deal with the growing impact of Social Media in the Business to Consumer (B2C) environment
• Ensure that Triton Showers work-force were  more comfortable with the modern platform format that Eagle could provide, in particular delivering a mobile CRM capability
• Develop the solution with Exel to provide an on-going, workable and stable solution

Conclusion

Service Manager, Graham Neve, has found working with the Exel team has considerably broadened the business calibre of his service team.  Working with Exel helped the staff at all levels in the business to understand the changes required in their role as a result of the solution, improving the way they communicate with the customer.

He believes Triton Showers are in a much stronger position thanks to their implementation of Eagle Field Service and the support received from Exel.

Find out more about Exel Computer Systems including videos, white papers and news in the Field Service News directory here

Overview:

Established in 1984, Adlib Audio  is one of the most well-known and well respected names in the live performance industry.  Across rental and installation divisions, the portfolio of Adlib clients includes Radiohead , David Guetta, Skrillex , Toby Keith, Ellie Goulding, The Script, Glastonbury, V-Festival, Professor Green, Swedish House Mafia, Bring Me The Horizon, The Overtones , John Barrowman and The Specials.

Due to the stature of these events and touring artistes it is imperative that Adlib Audio capitalises on the latest technology to ensure reliability, quality of service and performance.

Challenge:

As acknowledged leaders in performance and production, Adlib Audio demands a comprehensive system to manage and control multi-million pound PA systems in a variety of conditions; indoors from an intimate stage to a complete theatre or large scale venue and outdoors, in all weathers from a beach in Ibiza, to a rain-soaked British festival.

To this end, Adlib Audio has designed a bespoke Windows 7 disk image which simplifies management of multiple computers and enables all machines to be easily upgraded to the same standard or reset to Adlib’s factory settings complete with the full suite of live software.

From a hardware perspective, this demands not only extensive ruggedisation but an ease of use and Windows integration in which Adlib Audio can have full confidence.  As a result, Adlib Audio turned to RUGGED MOBILE Systems who recommended the Motion Computing J3500 Tablet PC.  As the primary control interface for the system, the J3500 is now at the heart of many Adlib-produced performances.

Solution:

With such high demands on performance, Adlib Audio developed a very clear, specific protocol for the implementation of the technology.  Tim Robinson, IT Administrator, Adlib Audio explains: “When the tablets first arrived, we quarantined them all until one had been fully configured as a template machine and approved by all concerned.”

“This ‘image’ was then rolled out across the others so that they all matched perfectly. This whole process took about three days, but that included learning how to do it in the first place. By the time I did the sixth one, I had the time from unboxing to ready-to-use down to 14 minutes.”

Many features of the J3500 were attractive to Adlib Audio.  Tour Sound Specialist, Tony Szabo said: “For us, the tablet had to run Windows because our software depends on it.  We then looked at features such as the pen-based input for making fine adjustments; the option to defeat any finger-based input to avoid any accidental or malicious adjustment to the system; the 5GHz Wi-Fi to avoid interference with the majority of consumer devices and the RJ45 port in case Wi-Fi proves to be unreliable - in a live situation we prize reliability beyond all else.”

In addition the industry-leading ruggedisation and sealed design of the J3500, alongside the extra protection and portability afforded by the Motion Bump Case, means Adlib Audio can take the tablets out on the road, into the field or on the beach with full confidence that they will perform.

Results:

Compared to the older tablets and legacy hardware that began to suffer hardware failures and were no longer available, the J3500 has given Adlib a contemporary hardware platform that combines quality and reliability. Dave Kay, Technical Director, concludes:

“So far, the J3500 has not missed a beat.  Financially we make a saving by not having to repair them, but, in truth, the real ROI is within the operational realm.”

“When you have chart-topping acts on stage, relying on your people and a technology to perform in front of thousands, there is real value in the confidence that the J3500 delivers.”

“Looking forward, we are only barely scratching the surface of what the tablets can do. We expect within the next twelve months or so, for another of our larger systems to introduce a new processing and control system, at which time this too will be controlled from the Motion J3500.”

Ian Davies, UK country manager, Motion Computing adds:

“Behind the incredible performances of top artists is a small army of engineers and they demand the best kit that will not let them down despite challenging environments and dynamic requirements.  This requires an uncompromising attitude towards performance, reliability and usability and that is exactly what we seek to deliver with the J3500.”

 Find out more about Motion Computing, including videos, features and other case studies in the Field Service News directory here.