Your Homes Newcastle, an ALMO for Newcastle City Council, is using NDL for its first mobile working project, starting with 100 employees who run its concierge services. This is part of a wider plan by Your Homes to introduce mobile working across all of its operations. The concierge services of the first housing blocks will be mobilised over the next two years, with Your Homes expecting annual savings of around £1.1 million.
The project is based on NDL’s awiMX platform which takes data from multiple back office systems and allows end-users to access it via a mobile application on their smartphones and tablets. The NDL software will also allow Your Homes staff with basic development skills to easily build and distribute line-of-business apps to devices using Android, Blackberry or Windows operating systems.
Geof Ellingham, head of IT, Your Homes Newcastle, said, “Mobile working has huge potential for us – we have 30,000 homes to look after in hundreds of locations across the city, so it makes perfect sense.
“The first project is to mobilise around 100 employees who operate our concierge service. Typically these individuals carry out block inspections and deal with issues such as rubbish left outside homes or reports of trespassing. They are always on the move which sometimes makes it hard for residents to contact them.”
Under the new mobile working system, residents will report problems to a central enquiry centre which will then pass queries directly to the concierge’s smartphone or tablet, enabling them to deal with problems more efficiently.
Ellingham added, “NDL’s software is platform-neutral so we aren’t tied to a single operating system or device, which is very useful at this stage in our mobile working plans. We also gain access to NDL’s user group, allowing us to share ideas and applications with other organisations – we see this as essential in shaping our strategy and helping us to get the most out of mobile working.”
