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Who are Watling Hope? 

Watling Hope are market leaders in the field of wastewater engineering services and are seen as such not only because they are national specialists but also because they demonstrate a keen desire to innovate when it comes to service delivery. They pride themselves on operating with flexibility and having a truly 'customer-first' attitude. How have they achieved this?

“We've made the service department the business, moving it from an after-sales function to the front end of the customer relationship,” says Edward Palin, managing director of Watling Hope.

In fact, Watling Hope’s development into service leaders in their field has not been a straight line. They have grown into a service business from originally being a ground works company. That is, they were a company which made its revenue from installing pumping stations and mechanical drainage devices but made the transition as they realised the commercial sense in also maintaining those devices, before taking the leap to maintaining devices that other people had installed as well.

Such a change in company emphasis has seen Watling Hope expand from 50  contracts 20 years ago to around 2,500 contracts today. “We provided a unique professional approach in what wasn’t a customer service orientated industry,” says Palin.

“Before us it was guys in overalls handing over dirty bits of paper. “Watling Hope’s unique attraction was a service company which put together usable reports and relationships which effectively looked after the customers’ interests from a commercial perspective, as opposed to on a job by job basis."

 

Ongoing Service Innovation

Like any good service business, Watling Hope are restless innovators, always looking to evolve better ways of delivering.

The latest stage of this evolution involved 18 months sizing up service solutions options, saying goodbye to the previous ERP platform in the process. When the step was made they went with Tesseract Service Centre, and got their mobile engineering team online with Motorola’s ES400 PDAs, although not simultaneously.

“I remember at the time saying to Tesseract that when we get the new system we want to recognise the benefits straight away,” says Palin.

“They wisely advised us we need our office to understand the system first, because you don’t want 25 engineers phoning up and asking how it works when the people in the office don’t understand it yet. That phased implementation has worked really well for us.”

A phased approach was also applied to the eventual hardware rollout, with two engineers in the team given the ES400s to play with. This approach seems to have negated the expected resistance.

“The other engineers started saying ‘when am I getting my PDA?’” says Palin.

Having an engineering team clamouring for new gear is not a common story; Watling Hope might be on to something with the drip feed of hardware solutions. It has revitalised the mobile team’s approach to work; it represents a feeling of being invested in.

Regardless of industry, service organisations all have a similar set of needs. This played a large part in the process to ditch the ERP solution and side with Tesseract.

“They had 20 years working in service, as opposed to an ERP solution which just adapted to fit service,” says Palin.

“We wanted a service solution for a service organisation.”

“If a pumping station goes down it is business critical, people don’t think about that. If you take a restaurant or a hotel, you can turn the water off and the customers would probably stay there. If they can’t use the drainage, the toilets, you’d have to close the business. So being able to respond quickly and being able to keep the customer informed is a crucial feature of what we do.”

 

Assessing the Service Process

Implementing a new system also gave Watling Hope the chance to reassess other areas of the way they worked.

The previous ERP system contained a legacy of site specific comments, meaning the information needed could only be found by trawling through pages of comments. Instead of dumping this data into the Service Centre, engineers were encouraged to re-inform head office of specific details, which would be entered in useful, context specific spaces.

The new system also encouraged a shift in the way regional teams are organised.

“We have quarterly meetings where we all get together,” says Palin. “For a national business it’s a huge environmental consideration for everyone to drive here. As we reorganised into areas with the roll out of the new system, we are now having area meetings; so management and operations will drive to meet the teams instead.”

Communication has always been a key factor to the mobile engineering teams, with free calls between business mobiles encouraging knowledge sharing. In addition the area meetings impart company updates, but also might feature a supplier who will give a presentation on changes to a product. It also forms itself into something of a training road show, imparting customer service and technical training. Each session finishes on a forum to give engineers a voice, encouraging a friendly peer to peer atmosphere.

Watling Hope have fought hard to develop a professional service offering, and don’t seem to have any plans to stop their progression.

 

What does the future hold?

“Continued growth and consolidation of customers,” concludes Palin. “We’re hoping to provide a more diverse range of services.”

Download a PDF copy of this Case Study containing additional commentary from both Tesseract and Watling Hope here

Introduction

Founded in 2002, Cambridge Cognition develops and commercialises computerised neuropsychological tests. The company's proprietary technology platform, known as CANTAB®, the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, is based on 25 tests and is now a market leader in two key segments: pharmaceutical clinical trials and academic research. This competitive edge is rooted in the extensive scientific validation of the test battery - unparalleled by others in the field.

These tests not only aid scientists around the world with active research into cognition but also assist pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials in order to understand the cognitive effects of drugs, especially in treating conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, depression and ADHD. The majority of the world's top twenty pharmaceutical companies are Cambridge Cognition clients

The challenge

The CANTAB battery of tests is based on touch-screen technology to deliver rapid, non-invasive cognitive assessment, in the field and in laboratories. Up until 2010, Cambridge Cognition used a tablet PC with a resistive touch screen.

Due to the sensitive nature of the tests it is vital to maintain high performance standards for hardware.  Simple 1-to-1 replacement using different technology is not possible without extensive cross-validation.

Louise Ward, Logistics Manager, Cambridge Cognition explains: “Two critical factors must be borne in mind when it comes to the testing we carry out.  Firstly, testing may run over several years and throughout that period we need consistency to meaningfully compare data

“Secondly we cannot tolerate any degradation in performance of the hardware.  Our tests deal in millisecond reaction times as patients react to on-screen stimuli.  We simply cannot have any variation in results caused by the technology itself.”

The solution

As a CamTech customer since 2004, Cambridge Cognition turned to the systems integrator to specify a new solution based on the more stable capacitive touch screen technology.  Based on this requirement, as well as the form factor of the legacy hardware platform and the Windows basis of the Cambridge Cognition software, CamTech specified the Motion J-series.

In late 2010 Cambridge Cognition adopted the Motion J3500 and has since deployed around 700 units across the globe.

Weighing just 3.6lbs and coated in shock dampening rubber, the J3500 features:

• Capacitive Dual Touch display options for both finger and digitizer pen input
• An outdoor viewable 12.1” AFFS + LED backlight, screen available with View Anywhere or Gorilla® Glass for increased display damage resistance
• MIL-STD-810G and IP52 ratings for ruggedisation
• Hot-swappable dual batteries that can deliver virtually uninterrupted performance
• Industry leading anti-theft security technology suite
• A complete range of peripherals including a battery charger, FlexDock and attachable, spill-resistant mobile keyboard[/unordered_list] 

Because of the need for such high levels of accuracy, Cambridge Cognition subjects the J3500 to sophisticated in-house testing, backed by extensive user training.  The units are monitored and controls are in place to ensure consistency on a given unit throughout its lifetime.

Louise continues: “As a result of our evaluation of the hardware itself, we have realised that the J3500 and Motion have yielded additional benefits alongside the capacitive touch screen. Our users have fed back that the extensive battery life and the double battery capacity has enabled a lot more freedom in their work.”

“In addition the level of ruggedisation has been critical in ensuring the units perform as they should right across the globe.  The presence of two USB ports has also been a key factor in improving use out in the field as tests can be backed up to portable storage devices and our academic users can use software keys stored on USB sticks.”

“Even the more considered pace of upgrades to the units works in our favour as we need time to develop validation, training and support.  In this regard as well as during times when we need technical support our links to Motion and CamTech have been invaluable.”

Looking to the future, Cambridge Cognition is set to explore the options presented by the new J3600. One of the main benefits that this evolution in the J-series offers is that it is fully compatible with the J3500 and all associated peripherals.  This not only ensures continuity of testing but also protects the investment made so far.

Louise concludes: “We have some of the most demanding expectations of the technology we use and the J3500 has met them and in some cases exceeded them. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Motion and CamTech.”

Introduction:

Tucker Gardner Residential Limited (Tucker Gardner) was formed in 2005 by the merger of two market leading property specialists: Tucker Gardner Partnership (established 1989) and Camflats Property Management Limited (est. 1983).

With a portfolio of services spanning residential sales, lettings, land development, planning consultation and mortgages, Tucker Gardner employs over 85 people and has specialist offices in Cambridge, Great Shelford, Histon and Ely as well as a showcase suite in Mayfair to attract the London and international markets to East Anglia.

Against a backdrop of 35% of the housing stock in the Cambridge area being rentals, the business has grown through a mixture of customer service focused investment in technology (including mobile solutions) and aggressive expansion.  Tucker Gardner currently manages over 2,500 properties in the Cambridge area.

The challenge:

A key service for rental landlords is the inventory check carried out at the beginning of each tenancy: listing and documenting the condition of various elements within the property, from the state of decoration to fixtures and fittings.  This has traditionally been carried out by hand leading to a time intensive process that saw an average of four hours spent writing up notes on site and a further three hours inputting the information into the Tucker Gardner database.

Faced with an ever increasing portfolio of properties to manage, Tucker Gardner began to look for a mobile solution to reduce the time spent on this largely administrative task.  Following consultation with CamTech, a leading local technology mobile solutions provider, Tucker Gardner invested in the Motion J3500 tablet PC and the iAssist inventory software from IT Proz.

The solution:

Tucker Gardner chose the J Series on the basis of its superior processing power, ruggedisation and ease of use.  Weighing just 3.6lbs and coated in shock dampening rubber, the J3500 features:

• Capacitive Dual Touch display options for both finger and digitizer pen input
• An outdoor viewable 12.1” AFFS + LED backlight, screen available with View Anywhere or Gorilla® Glass for increased display damage resistance
• MIL-STD-810G and IP52 ratings for ruggedisation
• Hot-swappable dual batteries that can deliver virtually uninterrupted performance
• Industry leading anti-theft security technology suite
• A complete range of peripherals including a battery charger, FlexDock and attachable, spill-resistant mobile keyboard

The benefits:

The J Series and iAssist have led to a substantial improvement in productivity for Tucker Gardner. Combined with docking stations, and a wireless mouse, the J Series now enables inventory checks to be carried out in approximately two hours and uploaded directly into the database.  Combined with a dedicated inventory resource, this mobile solution has freed the Tucker Gardner property managers to focus on developing properties and improvements in customer service.

The reduction in time spent on inventories has been especially noticeable around the seasonal peaks of sabbatical and annual term starts; previously managers ran up extensive overtime, something which has now been eliminated.

The network capability of the J Series enables communication with the office via email and instant messaging, as well as field research for subjects such as council tax bands or local services.

Stephen Hull, Lettings Support Administrator, Tucker Gardner explains:

“Out in the field, the combination of connectivity, ease of input and processing power means the J Series has cut time spent on inventories to such a degree that we are now thinking of rolling it out as a dedicated service beyond just our managed lets.  This will turn a cost centre into profit centre, built directly on the investment in tablet technology.”

“The iAssist software is easily customised to our precise needs and we have had strong support from both IT Proz and CamTech.   We are already looking to expand our investment in the solution with additional unit for our other offices, which will give us a standardised mobile platform throughout the network of offices.”

John Adamson, Managing Director, Tucker Gardner adds:

“We expect to realise full ROI on our investment in around a year, and the increase in customer service that the J Series and iAssist have enabled has been a huge benefit.  We are leaders in the Cambridge property market and it is investment in progressive solutions such as the J Series and iAssist that will keep us in that position.”

Overview:

The use of powerful mobile data capture devices and software can make a huge difference to delivery companies and their customers, particularly if the devices offer facilities such as image and signature capture. These can be used to streamline proof of delivery operations.  Leading parcels carrier, XDP,has installed a large number of Motorola devices sourced by Spirit Data Capture Limited, as well as specialist software developed by Spirit. These have already brought benefits of increased accuracy, time and cost savings, and higher customer satisfaction levels.

History:

XDP was formed in 1995 and is the largest privately owned parcels carrier in the UK. It has a network of franchises throughout the UK and Southern Ireland, comprising 80 depots. The company’s IT department provides 24x7 support to all depots and customers, which includes the provision of ‘out of hours’ telephone / remote support.

Over the past three years, XDP has developed and implemented a web-based system (XSYS) for its customers, depots and Head Office. This system now covers all aspects of the company’s day-to-day business operations, providing real-time, centralised information to all levels.

Implementing a solution to improve efficiency:

Some time ago, the IT department conducted a search for suitable hardware to streamline its operations. It contacted independent specialist Spirit Data Capture Limited, which sources, installs and supports both hardware and software for mobile enterprise solutions.

In the early stages, Spirit recommended the MC70 rugged PDA from Symbol. After Symbol was acquired by Motorola,XDP also bought over 200 MC55 rugged PDAs from Spirit. To add to these, XDP is now deploying the Motorola MC65 rugged PDA.

The M65 is the most rugged Enterprise Digital Assistant currently available. It enables mobile workers to have instant access to applications and information from the office. It also enables them to capture and process almost any kind of data whilst in the field, including photos and signatures. It is therefore ideal for delivery companies that need proof of delivery.

Spirit also offered XDP a software solution that complemented the hardware and integrated with the company’s own system. This was particularly useful, as XDP had experienced a number of problems with its existing software, which connected the mobile devices with its back-end system.

Chris Bailey, XDP’s IT Manager, explains: “The changes we’ve made have been largely driven by the commercial benefits involved. We had the confidence to make them because of our relationship with Spirit. The devices that Spirit has recommended have an overall better quality than those of other competitors, and they fit well into the hand. “A major factor in their purchase was the Comprehensive Service Contract provided by Motorola. We use this regularly as it ensures that we can keep all of our devices operable regardless of any damage they sustain in an often tough environment. I’m sure that the overall cost of this optional service would have been far exceeded by any repair bills over the years.”

Device usage:

The devices are used for barcode scanning within the depots to confirm the receipt of freight early in the morning and then later in the day when the drivers collect from local customers. The Motorola units are also used to capture an image for proof of delivery, which is made available to all parties through XSYS. Chris continues: “In the early stages of implementation, the devices were used solely inside a depot, with drivers capturing the proof of delivery information as they returned each afternoon.

Over time, we’ve acquired more devices and issued them to the drivers, who now perform the same operation during their deliveries.

“The Motorola units enable them to provide near-time information online, including the signed proof of delivery. This includes an image of a paper signature, rather than asking a customer to ‘sign on the screen’ - so it is a more accurate record of the signature.”

He adds: “Customers can now get near-time tracking information, particularly the proof of delivery images, which used to take up to 48hrs from delivery. The drivers have also received some benefits, because when they return to the depot they don’t have to enter all of their proofs of delivery onto a computer - they now capture them as they progress through their route during the day.

“Depots which input freight to the network now get far greater visibility of consignments and the administration need is reduced, as customers can see the same information. The depots can highlight areas to follow up and can concentrate their efforts on consignments that need attention.”

Chris concludes: “The Motorola devices have always proved reliable and the service we’ve received from Spirit has always been very professional. We experienced one issue which the operating system, but Spirit helped us with this and liaised with Motorola to identify a solution. Although we’re not making use of all of the other services that Spirit provides, it’s great to know that they are available if we need them. We look forward to any additional benefits that they are able to bring to our business in the future.”

Gamestec, the largest gaming and amusement machine operator in the UK, provides services for over 35,000 machines in 10,500 locations. With many decades’ of experience, the company prides itself on the level of service it offers its customers which include pubs, leisure venues, clubs, bars and service stations. They provide an end to end solution for the operation of the gaming system with 364 days per year customer care facility and over 1000 field based teams to ensure local experts are on hand.

Managing field workers and field service

As part of their commitment to customer care, Gamestec embarked on a project to replace their legacy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and improve customer service levels. Having evaluated many CRM options they chose to work with mplsystems to introduce a pioneering solution, utilising mplsystems’ iMobile technology that would not only provide a CRM solution but would also offer call and email handling, manage bookings and engineering visits and provide visibility of, and communications with, field workers.

The solution

Working with mplsystems, Gamestec devised a solution that was unique in that it collapses the service desk, planning and dispatch functions into a single ‘intelligent’ agent desktop, thereby enabling the contact centre to communicate directly with engineers’ smart phones. The desktop integrates Gamestec’s asset management; ordering and stock control systems and provides a mobile workforce management tool. iMobile smart phone app allows the company’s in-house contact centre to communicate directly with engineers’ PDAs, automatically allocating jobs according to the engineers’ skill, location and current workload. Should emergency appointments come up or clients change their bookings, schedules are dynamically optimised based on field engineers’ current locations and loading and real time updates sent to the appropriate engineer.

Agent Experience

The custom agent desktop is designed to provide a single view of everything that the agent needs to resolve Gamestec client requests. It provides the agent with a complete view of the client’s service history, specific assets, locations as well as managing service bookings and schedules. This integrated approach has allowed Gamestec to change the way customer service is managed; previously, all service requests were passed through a number of separate departments, opening up the opportunity for errors and delays. The new desktop solution brings these teams into a cross-functional role covering help desk, customer service and planning. Now, requests are dealt with by one person who dispatches the request immediately out to the field. This real time view, along with other process improvements, has enabled service response times to decrease by 28%, or 44 minutes over the 12 months.

Customer Experience

Providing real time customer updates: when a customer calls to check the progress of, or change to, a service request, the agent can provide an immediate update from a live map on their desktop showing in real time all engineers’ locations (via GPS), their skill sets and current loading.

End-to-end service request reporting improves customer satisfaction: management is provided with real time monitoring of service requests, escalations and SLA adherence. Using hour by hour and day by day reports, aged issues can be captured quickly, escalation effectively managed and communicated to both field staff and customers advising them of completion timescales.

Business benefits

Prior to the iMobile deployment, Gamestec had needed separate contact centre technology, CRM and handheld devices to maintain communications with engineers. These systems required multiple licenses and were expensive to maintain and support and were proving to be inflexible. By deploying the new solution to cover all 3 functional areas, Gamestec has experienced an 88% reduction in on-going IT costs and has enabled increased efficiency across the organisation in how service and field workers are deployed.

 

Coastway is the largest chartered land surveying and geospatial engineering company in Ireland. Headquartered in Naas, Ireland with overseas offices in London and Poland, Coastway specialises in capturing, processing and managing geospatial data.

Terrestrially based technologies make the land surveying of quarries and similar large, external facilities time-intensive.  As this time passes there is the risk of the survey becoming inaccurate as the land changes and the quarry alters or further equipment is added.

This necessitates the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to enable quicker, more comprehensive topographical surveys.  UAVs also enable safer working practices and typically have less impact on the environment.

To ensure an accurate survey, control of the UAV is paramount.  A tablet PC is the natural choice.  However, using the tablet specified by the UAV manufacturers, Coastway soon hit a series of challenges: a short battery life, lack of ruggedisation, excessive weight and limited functionality interrupted work flow.   As a result, Coastway turned to rugged tablet specialist Camtech to specify and implement a better solution.

Darrell Newman, Technical Services Manager, Camtech explains: “The typical work flow for the Coastway team would be to use a tablet in the office to conduct pre-flight checks, then file a flight plan.  The device would then need to remain on standby as the team travels to the site, in order to enable any revisions to the scope of the task or the flight plans.

“The survey team will usually handle around three jobs per day, with around four flights per job of approximately 20 minutes per flight.  This profile of activity and the environment in which the teams operate made battery life, portability and ruggedisation critical concerns.  As a result we specified the Motion CL910 with additional peripherals to enhance the weather proofing.”

The CL910 enables the team to have a full working day with up to seven hours of battery life.  At 1.9kg the CL910 is portable and in the field, the 10.1” screen delivers bright visibility and the ruggedisation of Corning® Gorilla® Glass.  The display supports both "Touch" and "Pen" input, enabling fine control of the UAV drone.  When the survey is complete, the integrated Wi-Fi enables quick transmission of the data.  Specific job data and individual flight footage are kept separate by backing up flight footage to the SD card in the internal bay.

Motion CL910 Tablet Overview:

One of the biggest success stories to come from the London Mayor's office was the introduction of Barclay's London Cycle Hire  (locally known as Boris Bike's after London's affable Mayor Boris Johnson who introduced the scheme) an ambitious project which has brought easy access bicycle hire and the environmental and health benefits of such a scheme to the busy streets of central London.

Of course the task of managing such a project and the mobile workforce that keep it operating, is a major undertaking, one which fall to international service company Serco. In this case study we look at how the worked with Leadent Solutions to establish an automated work scheduling system to make the project work.

Background:

Barclays London Cycle Hire (LCH) – run by international service company Serco – is a public bicycle sharing scheme that was launched in London and is now in its third year. The scheme's bicycles operate throughout 17 square miles in the city across a coverage area which approximately matches Zone 1 of the London Underground.

Since its introduction, the scheme has grown in scale from 5,700 to 9,000 bikes and from 315 to 570 docking stations, with over 20 million journeys made to date.

Users can pick up and drop off bikes at any of the docking stations, therefore ensuring there is an adequate supply of not only bikes, but also empty racks for returning customers, is vital to the success of the scheme. Therefore during high load hours, the bikes are moved from the busiest stations to the emptiest by vehicle by a dedicated mobile workforce.

The Challenge:

Maintaining the network requires a dedicated team to keep the bikes and the docking stations they are hired from in good repair, and to ensure that the supply of bikes is regulated to meet customer demand and KPIs agreed with Transport for London (TfL) in a 24 x 7 x 365 period. In meeting these KPIs, LCH ensures good service for customers, making hiring, using and returning bikes as easy as possible.

In anticipation of an extension of the cycle hire scheme into East London, almost doubling the number of bikes and docking stations, LCH needed a way of helping to optimise and dispatch field operatives to make sure that the supply of bikes to the right locations was accurately managed. It also needed to achieve this with the same size dispatch team, despite the extension of the scheme meaning that the number of docking stations was to be increased to 570 and the number of bikes to 9,000.

It was the significant increase in the scale of the project that meant a new and more efficient approach was needed, but crucially, without the need for large numbers of additional field staff being added to the mobile workforce.

Previous work practices involved significant ‘phone time’ – this essentially displayed the state of the docking stations on a big screen, from which control room staff used the visual overview to raise jobs by the expedient of calling the on-street team to tell them what needed doing. Once a job had been communicated, there was no feedback, status update etc., other than the change to the main display – and changes could have just as easily been driven by a large group of tourists arriving at a docking station as by the redistribution driver.

To compound the challenge, managing the bike supply requires dispatchers to manage a constantly changing work list where jobs are frequently raised, re-prioritised, and withdrawn as customers hire and return bikes, and to be able to do this in a consistent manner. One of the KPIs which Serco must meet is to make sure that docking stations have spare spaces for bikes to be returned, but also bikes available for hire, with points accumulated as the clock ticks when stations are full or empty, and a financial penalty resulting if the agreed timeframe is exceeded.

The scheduling system must be intricate enough to account for a sudden change in the status of a docking station. For example, a full docking station will cause a job to be created to remove some of the bikes, allowing for returns. However, a group of tourists could empty rack before the operatives arrive, changing the job from removing to delivering bikes, which need to be sourced from another location. This ebb and flow of bicycle hiring demands a near real-time automated system to ensure that the system runs smoothly.

In addition, maintenance work, although more predictable, still required the implementation of automated processes to arrange collection of bikes for workshop repair.

LCH had also identified the need to capture the level of use bikes were receiving as maintenance work was carried out, and to record histories of work carried out on the bikes and the docking stations, requirements that were, at best, only partially supported by the existing solution.

The Solution:

LCH chose mobile workforce optimisation specialist Leadent Solutions to design and implement a better way of supporting these requirements. Leadent Solutions is a company which specialises in workforce optimisation, applying its expertise to clients such as Thames Water, British Gas and Vodafone to help manage their workforces more effectively and thereby provide improved customer service to customers.

Leadent in turn then utilised ClickSoftware to deliver the core schedule automation and controls together with a mobile technology application to process work.

The solution centres on an integrated data feed from each of the 14,000 docking points which updates every three minutes. This live data is fed automatically into ClickSchedule software which compares the data to defined agreed targets. When it finds a docking station that has passed its limits for hiring or returning availability, a job is created in near real-time, based on priority, skills and geography. Jobs are withdrawn if the station naturally falls back within tolerance and the system also prioritises jobs according to pre-defined rules.

The system uses a dynamic prioritisation engine, which considers a station’s grading, the time it has been in breach of availability targets and other factors, to ensure urgent work is prioritised over less critical or a routine maintenance task.

With all of these actions being automated and the on-street operatives being updated by bespoke mobile devices, there is no need for the frequent phone calls which the control centre team previously had to make to field operatives to give instructions and receive updates. This mitigates the risk of missing stations which the manual system allowed for, threatening KPI compliance.

The mobile solution also allows operatives to record task activity and report inventory consumed, thereby building a history of asset maintenance.

Leadent Solutions has been involved from the early design stages; and has been supporting LCH in rolling out the solution during 2012, ensuring the implementation runs smoothly.

Results:

Using Leadent Solutions’ rapid deployment methodology, and working collaboratively with LCH, the new solution has:

• Provided near real-time visibility of the state of the LCH network at any point in time, allowing managers to get a clear overview of what the status quo is for current work and work in progress and enabling easier management of field operatives
• Provided near real-time task creation, prioritisation and dispatch to help LCH proactively manage KPIs agreed with TfL
• Provided a clearer picture of which bikes and locations are being used the most, providing customers with the best possible service and availability.
• Provided the systems to deliver streamlined, automated business operations through automated scheduling and mobile solutions
• Provided a more efficient way to manage employee breaks and to standardise working practices through automated processes
• Demonstrated the value of automated scheduling in delivering more efficient use of resources, better management of work, and, in turn, improved responses on KPIs

In business terms, this has contributed to:

• A 40% expansion of the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme with minimal additional control centre staff costs
• Helping Serco achieve agreed KPIs
• Near elimination of voice interchanges between field and control, saving both time and money
• Delivering a marked improvement in resource utilisation and field engineer productivity through efficient and effective scheduling, dispatch and reporting of work
• Improving the quality of operational performance data, by being able to capture real world actual performance at a higher level of detail than previously possible
• Allowing a sustained improvement in operational performance and efficiency, allowing the Scheme to grow, but managed by the same control team that had previously managed a much smaller operation.

The cycle hire operation now delivers:

• • Circa 180,000 registered members
  • 570 docking stations & 14,000 docking points
  • Circa 9000 cycles available for hire
  • Maintaining 250 bikes every day  and on street triage of 400 bikes a day
  • Up to 27 vehicles move on average 4,000 bikes per day
  • Over 23 million hires to date

Biotage offers solutions, knowledge and experience in the areas of analytical chemistry, medicinal chemistry, peptide synthesis, separation and purification. In this video we here from Chris Lacey, Field Service Manager, about how he worked with Service Max to improve the efficiency of the Biotage mobile workforce.

In the second of this two-part series, the Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) discusses their volunteer program, data capture using the Intermec CN50 and CK71, the services of Scan Read Technologies, and what it takes to pull off PGA events.