Following the first phase of the introduction of Kirona’s mobile working and dynamic job scheduling software to technical officers and tradespersons across its housing service, North Lanarkshire Council has seen a 20 per cent increase in the productivity of its local homes teams. It has also achieved cashable savings in the region of £280,000 per year from reduced asset and administration overheads.
The second phase of the introduction of Kirona’s Job Manager and Xmbrace DRS will see the system and supporting mobile technologies deployed across all of the council’s capital, voids, planned and repair works categories.
Des Murray, head of housing property, North Lanarkshire Council, said, “Our vision for this project has been to remove the service bottlenecks that have traditionally hampered our performance both in the office and in the field.
“Since implementing the software, our repairs teams and our customers have seen a significant improvement in our services. Our no-access rates in areas such as pre-inspection have dropped from 40 per cent to just 3 per cent, with turnaround timescales counted in hours not days.”
Kirona’s workforce management software was chosen because it manages everything from the scheduling of jobs in the office using Xmbrace DRS, through to the fulfilment of the work by field operatives using the Job Manager mobile application. The same technologies are now being used to integrate with other systems, including the council’s asset and contracts management frameworks and its wider mobile working infrastructure.
Murray said, “We are just as excited about the future as we are about what we’ve already achieved. We are now beginning the process of rolling out the framework we have developed beyond housing services, including the incorporation of over 1,200 personnel from our home support teams.”
