April/May 2008

Anglian Water needed a capable mobile system to manage its meter replacement programme, and Multipart came up with the solution

With an area of 27.5 sq km to service, Anglian Water has the largest area to cover of any of the water companies, and serves 5.4 million customers in 2.4 million properties.

Just over half use metered water. Anglian Water owns the meters, and over the next five years it has to replace 240,000 of them. Meters become less accurate with age and need changing periodically.

So what sort of systems capability is needed to manage a task like this? Initially Anglian Water deployed an off-the-shelf package to manage its mobile engineers, and in particular to provide inventory control and job process control. But it found this was not sophisticated enough to handle some of the complexities of planning and managing the work.

That was when the company decided to introduce the Mysys MRM package from Multipart - becoming the first customer for the system. To most people Multipart is probably known better for its automotive parts logistics business, but it is also becoming a significant software supplier, and its latest move in this direction has given it a presence in the service support sector.

Mysys MRM takes the form of a mobile resource management module which has been added to Multipart's existing Mysys integrated systems platform. Among key benefits for Anglian Water was that is offered not only a service scheduling capability, but also parts inventory management.

One problem for Anglian in managing the huge meter replacement task is that although 80 per cent of meters are fitted outside properties, 20 per cent are located inside.

'Changing these meters is more complex from both a planning and a skills point of view,' explains Martin Warington, head of business development at Multipart. 'For a start, internally-located meters may need not one visit, but two: one to survey, one to fit a new meter.'

The first visit is to conduct a mini-site survey to confirm where the meter is installed and what additional equipment and skills will be needed to switch it over. For example, some meters are boxed in, and the engineer might need carpentry skills to do the job.

Since the deployment of the Mysys MRM there has been an impressive 20 per cent improvement in productivity, reports Warington - achieved through better process control and appointments planning and fewer failed visits.

Meters are tracked by serial number. Multipart holds stocks of meters and other parts that might be needed by the engineers. MRM allows them to run real-time snapshot reports on van inventories. 'Visibility of stock at all times is a big improvement. We can automatically replace stock and ensure there are enough parts to complete the planned jobs.'

Replacement parts are delivered to engineers throughout the day from Multipart warehouses. 'We don't need the complexity of overnight deliveries because we know where the engineers are during the day, and simply turn up at the address they are at,' Warington says. Multipart also handles collections of old meters from engineers' vans.

The Configuration Manager in Mysys is used to draw up the rules that drive the decision making. External meter replacements are automatically scheduled on a least-cost basis. For internal meters, Anglian Water's customer service centre staff are presented with possible appointment times in least-cost order to achieve the best balance between customer service and cost-effective operations. Job planning is continual, and resources are reallocated where necessary.

Once the schedules are fixed, the jobs are pushed out to PDAs. Engineers are typically given two days' appointments each time. This provides sufficient flexibility if customers are not at home, and if engineers finish the schedule early they can pull down a job from the following day. They are incentivised to do extra jobs, but also to ensure the work is done correctly.

Anglian Water opted for PDAs because these devices combine voice, data and camera functions. The camera is also used to take an image of the old meter reading before it is removed. It stamps the job number of the picture file as the photograph is uploaded. Once jobs are complete, the Mysys ERP pushes the data back to Anglian Water's SAP system.

BOX: Multipart - many synergies with logistics clients

'Companies with large field service operations require similar support services to our logistics clients,' says Multipart's Martin Warington.

Mysys was developed by Multipart's in-house IT department, and is the backbone supporting its end-to-end integrated supply chain business. As well as mobile resource management, Mysys comprises a suite of modules including electronic parts catalogue, product data management, demand forecasting and planning, supplier information portal and business intelligence reporting.

Mobile Resource Management system features resource planning and job scheduling and deployment through mobile PDAs. The system provides optimised work routing and data capture of all work undertaken, including asset serial numbers of replaced equipment and energy usage.

There is full visibility of inventory held throughout the supply chain including mobile vans.

Multipart is now part of the South African Imperial Holdings group. Last year it invested £23 million in a new distribution centre at Chorley, which has 60,000 locations and 70,00 parts lines. Customer includes LDV, TVR and Dennis Eagle.