Leicester City Council chooses GRASP for mobile workforce scheduling and management
07 Nov, 2011
Bacton (Suffolk), UK– 7th November 2011. Wheatley Associates, the leading provider of mobile workforce scheduling and efficiency software solutions, has announced that Leicester City Council has chosen its GRASP mobile workforce scheduling and TODAY mobile communications software to efficiently automate the work scheduling processes for its skilled mobile workforce, managing work allocation on a real-time basis for the first time.
Leicester City Council will initially implement Wheatley Associates’ GRASP and TODAY software to organise the efficient and dynamic deployment of its skilled mobile workforce on the planned and reactive repairs, maintenance and renovation activities in relation to its social housing stock to improve both efficiency and tenant satisfaction. As the largest landlord in Leicester with over 22,000 properties, the City Council has a large pool of 450+ skilled trades people (bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, painters and decorators etc) for whom it needs to organise work schedules on a daily, even hourly, basis.
“Planning daily work schedules for such a large skilled mobile workforce, ensuring that the right people with the right skills are on site at the right time, is no easy task,” said Amrik Singh, Planning and Major Works Manager at Leicester City Council. “We needed a system that could not only plan the schedules but also respond dynamically to the changes happening in the field for all our operatives. The GRASP system has an integrated handheld solution that feeds information back in real-time directly to the supervisors, allowing dynamic decisions to be made quickly and easily which is crucial to the overall efficiency of our housing repairs and maintenance operations and ensures tenant satisfaction. The software also allows us to keep tenants firmly in the loop, communicating when work has been scheduled and when operatives are on the way to them.”
Leicester City Council chose Wheatley Associates’ GRASP/TODAY mobile workforce management software following a stringent tendering process and evaluation of a number of potential solutions. The choice of GRASP was reinforced by the successful implementation of a subsequent pilot project.
“Achieving the right balance of efficiency and customer satisfaction is a difficult and complex problem which is magnified by the size of our workforce,” said Ian Craig, Head of Direct Services at Leicester City Council. “Our Tender process was particularly tough to ensure we selected a system that would not only meet our immediate requirements but also provide further scope for the future. We are confident that the GRASP/TODAY solution will drive out inefficiency, improve productivity scale to our workforce and concentrate on enhancing the experience of our tenants.”
Wheatley Associates will integrate GRASP with Leicester City Council’s existing, Capita OPENHousing back office systems for reporting purposes and also its existing stores systems for improved materials management. Additionally, once the GRASP/TODAY software is fully embedded in its housing repair and maintenance operations, Leicester City Council plans to exploit its scalability, expanding its use to a total of 1000+ mobile workers covering other Council departments including Social Services and the Clerk of Works.
“We are delighted to have been chosen by Leicester City Council to work with them on improving efficiencies for mobile workers throughout their organisation,” commented Lisa Norris, Wheatley Associates’ Managing Director. “Wheatley Associates are leaders in driving inefficiencies out of businesses by identifying the points of ‘Efficiency Bleed’. With our unique mix of implementation, consultancy and market expertise, we are able to offer our customers valuable insights into how they can improve their key processes.”
