Housing association improves mobile worker efficiency

New system will help tradesmen process more than 14,000 orders a year

Tradesmen's schedules can be adjusted quickly

Housing association Martlet Homes is upgrading its mobile technology to improve the efficiency of its repair workers in the field.

Martlet’s in-house team of tradesmen currently processes over 14,000 individual repair orders per year and software from Blackbay will enable it to track staff, allocate maintenance tasks more effectively, and provide customers with more reliable appointment times.

'The system improves both the speed at which we can attend to customers’ needs, and the overall quality of the services we deliver,' said Martlet business initiatives & programme manager Valerie Adler.

The web-based solution is provided on a fully hosted and managed service basis, so Martlet does not have to buy or maintain any new hardware.

By the summer, the Service Connect system will be rolled out to all 80 Martlet field staff including gas service engineers and electrical inspect and test operatives.

Tradesmen will receive job details on a hand-held device and managers will get back job status information in real time, increasing the visibility of each tradesman’s activities. Adjustments to schedules can be made throughout the day, with jobs allocated according to priority and smaller tasks fitted in as needed.

'While we are not commercial by nature, we still have to be credible players in our industry,' said Adler.

'Increasing the bottom line relies on either making more, or spending less - by adopting this new way of working will enable us to do the latter, and at the same time deliver an even better service to our customers,' she said.