A1 Housing has adopted mobile technology from Consilium to enable its maintenance teams to become more productive and deliver a more reliable service to its tenants. The 54-strong maintenance team at A1, an ALMO with some 7000 properties in Nottinghamshire, will use TotalMobile to receive and complete job information in the field, removing the need to return to headquarters between repair and servicing appointments.
By creating a more efficient workflow, A1 expects that each of its operatives will complete more jobs per day, resulting in a more responsive service for tenants. The consequent efficiencies and cost-savings will help A1 apply further resources to meet the Decent Homes requirement.
Richard Jennings, director of corporate services, A1 Housing, said “The organisation is currently ranked a ‘good’ two-star rating by the Audit Commission after a recent review of public service delivery, showing our continued commitment to strategies that improve our processes. Mobile working will help ensure we see efficiency gains across the board.”
Consilium worked with a small trial group from A1’s repairs team to make sure that the technology could be understood and accepted before its introduction into the existing working practices and delivery to the entire team.
Karen Bayliss, IT manager, A1 Housing, said “Providing a reliable service to our tenants is critical and a mobile solution enables our teams to spend more of their time working onsite at our properties. The training and staggered rollout of the technology was essential to ensure the maintenance teams felt empowered by the technology, not restricted or uncomfortable with new procedures.”
The TotalMobile service is supported by an additional back-office module which gives staff and managers a transparent, real-time view of work in progress.