Northumbrian Water is to install a mobile work system as part of a £1bn five-year service improvement programme, allowing field engineers equipped with handhelds to operate more efficiently.

The system will also be implemented at partner firm Essex and Suffolk Water, with a total of 1,000 vehicles and 1,500 field operatives to be equipped over the next 12 months by contractor, BT.

Brian Olley, Northumbrian Water’s management programme manager, says the biggest challenge posed by the project is its integration with the company’s 11-year-old legacy asset management system.

‘Our asset system works well, but it is positively ancient by IT standards,’ he said. ‘However, the pay-off will be the ability to manage our property much more easily than we can now.’

The mobile system will also provide improvements to the company’s customer service, with its GPS element locating the nearest engineer to allow them to respond more quickly to emergency calls.

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Further Reading:

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