Water firm boosts data flow to mobile workers

ERP upgrade will give mobile engineers real-time access to business info

Water company Integrated Water Services (IWS) has embarked on a major enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrade as it seeks to provide its increasingly mobile workforce with real-time business information.

IWS will be deploying a solution from ERP provider IFS Applications across its core back-office functions, although it will retain an existing Oracle Financials package and a bespoke mobile data capture system.

The company has more than 300 mobile engineers, who visit sites across the UK, maintaining and repairing water pipes, delivering water hygiene and legionella control systems and water treatment systems.

By standardising the back-office systems with IFS, business managers will be able to have far better insight into what’s happening in the firm, Pete Aspley, managing director, IWS, told Computing.

“Today, I couldn’t tell you how many quotations went out of the business. By the time the IFS system is fully implemented, we’ll have the information at our fingertips,” he said.

IWS will take a phased approach to the deployment, starting with its maintenance and engineering division, followed by the water hygiene unit and then finally the pipeline division.

IWS chose IFS because its software was able to work with existing business processes without modification. “It was also appealing because of the lower up-front capital and ongoing maintenance costs,” said Aspley.