Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

Kier Building Maintenance Mobilises Field Operatives at Four Local Councils Using Pervasic's MobileOne® Manager Service Platform

Productivity Gains of 1.5 Additional Jobs Per Operative Per Week, Better Management Reporting & reduction of paper usage

Kier Building Maintenance, part of the Support Services Division of Kier Group, has mobilised its field force operatives supporting Sheffield City Council’s 50,000 local authority homes, as well as council homes for local authorities in Leeds, Ealing and Islington, using Pervasic’s Pervasic MobileOne® Managed Service Platform. Kier is already seeing productivity increases of 1.5 additional jobs per operative per week. Pervasic’s mobile platform has replaced Kier’s manual paper-based system, saving the equivalent of one tree per day in paper alone.

Kier Support Services is part of the Kier Group, a £1.8 billion leading construction, development and service group specialising in building and civil engineering, support services, private house building, property development and the Private Finance Initiative. The Support Services division includes Kier Building Maintenance, which provides an extensive range of building support services primarily for local authorities and housing authorities.

“We wanted to address our internal processes for a more efficient means of job scheduling,” said Phil Oades, Service Manager for Responsive Repairs and Gas. “Daily work schedules were telephoned out to operatives in the field by supervisors. This not only resulted in a lot of mobile phone air time, but also interrupted the operatives when they were in the middle of existing jobs. We were also using a manual paper-based system for job scheduling, which was not only time and paper intensive, but also subject to human error or duplication. The existing system meant that operatives had to return to the service centre to hand in completed job sheets.”

Oades worked with his IT department to find a solution that could increase the efficiencies of the company’s job scheduling system, streamline processes, reduce costs and provide an easy to use option for operatives. Another motivation for mobilising its field operatives was the local government agenda relating to efficiency savings in the industry as a whole, moving away from paper to real time electronic data transfers. This was already part of Kier’s business plan and was congruent with its overall strategic business objectives.

Kier’s Building Maintenance team reviewed a number of solutions before selecting Pervasic’s MobileOne® Managed Service Platform. Pervasic’s platform runs in a secure, purpose built hosting centre designed to eliminate single points of failure with full redundancy and backup. The software has been specifically built to address the unique problems of supporting 100's of customers with 1000's of users over all mobile networks.

“A number of reference sites were visited and Kier felt that Pervasic was an extremely close fit with our requirements. They had a solid track record of delivery and we were impressed with the reference visits we conducted to their other local council customers, particularly with how they are benefiting from the system and the simplicity and usability aspects for operatives. We also felt the system was flexible enough to absorb any customisations we required. Pervasic is just as simple to integrate at the back end. It simply connects to our scheduling system, then moves real time data to the job completion system and then on to the job management system for billing and payments,” added Phil Oades.

The Pervasic platform went from initial field trials to deployment within a matter of just 12 weeks. The system is currently rolled out to over 230 operatives on different Kier Building Maintenance contracts across the country as part of the 1st phase. Over 150 of these are in Sheffield with 23 operatives in Ealing and 49 operatives in Islington; future works planned with operatives are shortly to be deployed in Leeds and a pilot scheme soon to begin in Ascham. The ultimate target is deployment to a total of 500 operatives by the end of 2007. Pervasic is currently working with Kier to customise templates for its gas and electric work, which has certain legislative requirements for signatures and forms.

“Field force mobilisation is not only a critical differentiator for competitiveness, but in the local government sector it is also a mandated requirement,” said John Salter, Chief Executive Officer of Pervasic. “we are delighted to be working with Kier and its local authority customers as they are a great example of how a large nationwide field force can be easily and cost effectively mobilised for the benefit of companies, local authorities, field operatives and housing tenants.”

Kier is on track with realising its ROI forecasts. This includes absorbing all the costs of deploying the system to other sites, including set up costs. This is based on 46 working weeks per year using just 63 operatives from its service centre. This does not yet factor in other savings from other efficiency gains, such as travel reductions on fuel for operatives not having to continually return to the service centre, or significant reduction of mobile phone air time costs.

“In terms of productivity and efficiency, we have seen an increase of 1.5 extra jobs per operative per week so far,” added Phil Oades. “We also have fewer discrepancies further down the line as all of the information is validated upon entry into the Pervasic system. The increased accuracy means fewer queries relating to bonus payments or overtime, and unlike paper, the information doesn’t get damaged or smudged in the rain. Another important benefit has been the environmental aspect of using Pervasic. On the old paper-based system, each operative was using up to 200 sheets of paper per week .”

Kier is the latest in a number of local authority customers to standardise on the Pervasic platform. Chesterfield Borough Council has already seen £600k in savings since initially embarking on a similar project.

About Kier Building Maintenance

As members of the Chartered Institute of Housing’s good practice unit, the British Quality Foundation and London Excellence, Kier Building Maintenance is committed to providing the highest level of service to the residents in their care. Kier Building Maintenance is quality registered and an Investor in People employer. The company can also boast gold status in health and safety practice with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Kier Building Maintenance is a division of the Kier Group, providing a collaborative approach to public sector building and housing repairs, maintenance and refurbishment, including Decent Homes.

About Pervasic Ltd

Pervasic Ltd is the UK leader in advanced mobile data solutions for both the private and public sector. The company’s MobileOne platform-based solutions deliver the market’s most technically advanced products and service offerings, enabling organisations to dramatically improve productivity and control for mobile workers, and significantly enhance overall business efficiencies. Pervasic’s customer base includes major blue chip organisations, ranging from some of the world’s largest manufacturers to global transport ticketing specialists, vehicle telematics experts and specialist security services. The company operates primarily in the Break & Fix, Distribution and Logistics, Construction, and Housing Management markets, as well as working with numerous UK Local Authorities. Privately held, Pervasic is supported by established private equity institutions with majority investment from Frontiers Capital.

www.pervasic.com

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For further info, contact:

Monique Chambers
Devonshire Marketing
Tel: 0202 871 2781
Email: monique@devonshiremarketing.com