Northgate Managed Services uses Aeromark Technology to Deliver better Customer Service
10 September 2010
New mobile workforce management system results in a 12:1 return on investment through faster customer fixes and greater efficiencies
As part of a companywide transformation project which sought to deliver better value to customers, both in terms of innovative high quality IT services and lower costs, leading ICT services company, Northgate Managed Services (Northgate MS) has successfully deployed the next generation of mobile workforce management systems from Aeromark; to manage it's 180 IT field engineers, throughout the UK.
Aeromark's Service Link is a unified paperless planning, job-despatch, PDA workflow, vehicle tracking and turn-by-turn navigation system, and was selected by Northgate MS after a period of extensive research to optimise business processes. The system allows complete visibility of the workforce (where they are, what jobs they are working on and their job status) as well as a complete overview of the client jobs logged. A team of resource planners monitor jobs that have been captured by the main IT service desk and then, using accurate live work data, allocate the job to the most appropriate engineer, based on location and expertise. The job will then be accepted by the engineer via their PDA, and using the integrated navigation technology, the engineer will attend the job.
The system has been introduced in phases, with the first phase implemented in January and since being introduced the team has responded to an increased number of jobs. From a company stand point the new technology has helped to enhance Northgate's overall efficiencies, which ultimately benefit the customer.
Commenting on the success of the mobile workforce project James Turnbull, Managing Director, Infrastructure Solutions, Northgate Managed Services said "The mobile workforce project has enabled us to drive change in our business, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our field engineering team. We have improved the management of our engineers through better planning based on increased visibility and better communication. Already the functionality of the system has enabled us to increase our average jobs per week per engineer."
He continued, "We are extremely pleased with the results which have exceeded our expectations. Our Engineers have embraced the technology and our customers are noticing the benefits. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Aeromark and further developing the system to meet the ever changing demands of our customers and the industry."
Roger Marks, Aeromark's Managing Director remarked "The improvements Northgate Managed Services have achieved have been a record result in terms of instant ROI for Service Link, especially as they were already an experienced user of PDAs. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our technology combined with a highly focused and well managed team at Northgate."
Service Link combines all the technologies available from Aeromark, including Optimatics, Vehicle Tracking and Workflow DynMX, Aeromark's bespoke PDA application on one single platform. New jobs are passed to Service Link which enables Geographic Optimisation based on Engineer workload and skill set; Northgate Managed Services get instant feedback, independently from both the Engineers vehicle and the PDA. The System also manages Parts Logistics, Collections and Van Stock.
