July/Aug 2004

Field staff handling housing maintenance in Hull are covering more ground and working more efficiently, thanks to a mobile data system

A mobile data application being deployed by the building services department of Hull City Council is expected virtually to eliminate administration paperwork, whilst improving vehicle and employee utilisation and raising the quality of service.

The department is responsible for all building maintenance and repairs for the 32,000 properties that comprise Hull's housing stock. It has a dedicated 600-strong workforce, including a rapid response team who handle urgent repairs notified by tenants. Team members all have their own vehicles, and handle between five and ten jobs a day each.

Under the council's existing automated system, faults are reported by tenants to a call centre, which passes them electronically to the housing department. This forwards them to the building services department's back-office system, Commit, which allocates jobs to mobile workers and tracks job progress.

 

However, communications with the mobile team are handled by simple GSM voice calls, or with a paper job order. Although the priority is to get repairs done quickly, it could take four days for job progress and completion data to be input into Commit and made available to the client and call centre.

Now the building services department is replacing its paper- and voice-based work method with a mobile data solution from APD Communications, which will bring the mobile employees into the electronic loop. It includes APD's INCA vehicle management and tracking, job despatch and electronic signature capture on ruggedised Symbol handheld terminals.

The mobile system currently uses GSM technology to communicate with the back office, but a GPRS solution will later be rolled out by the local telephone company, Kingston Communications.

The mobile team will use the handheld terminals to communicate estimated time of arrival, status of the repair and completion time in real time, bringing major improvements in the utilisation of vehicles and mobile employees, says Brad Smith, senior electrical manager. "Staff will be able to identify the vehicle closest to the property, reducing wasted mileage and making more productive use of mobile employees' time."

Unnecessary aspects of the paper trail will also be eliminated. "We didn't have current information on why mobile employees had not been able to complete allocated jobs, so couldn't give tenants a new date. With real-time information we can give tenants a better service."

From the council's point of view, public accountability is improved. The elimination of paperwork also helps Hull achieve Government targets for electronic service delivery.

The APD server works behind the existing Commit legacy system. This interface ability helped APD secure the contract, beating 34 other contenders. "We wanted to automate our processes, not change the back office system completely," says Ian Livingstone, IT officer for Hull City Council. "We can implement the system in phases, and the technology is future-proof. The APD application is independent of back-end applications, bearer networks and devices, so we are not tied in to suppliers or network providers."

It was natural, says Brad Smith, that there would be apprehension among administration staff that removing the need for manual data input would lead to redundancy job losses.

"Our intention is that as job allocation processes are automated and streamlined, the administration staff will be able to focus on monitoring, forward planning and analysing areas for improvement. We are already investigating a direct link to our stores department."

He adds: "We've given clear undertakings that we won't use the technology to monitor employee movements, although of course the system can be used to enhance lone workers' safety should the need arise."