Wessex
Wateris aiming for a 99.7% satisfaction
rating from its customers following its implementation of a
software-based scheduling system for its 700+ field
technicians.
Wessex Water provides water to 1.2 million people and disposes
of the sewage of 2.5 million people over a 10,000 square-kilometre
area of south west England.
It is using
ClickSoftware
Technologies' ServiceOptimization suite to forecast, plan,
schedule, and analyse the work of its field technicians. Previously
30 schedulers have done the task by hand.
Dave Copeland, head of IT at Wessex Water, said, "Our mission is
keep our customer satisfaction rate at 99.7% or better. That is not
easy to do with manual processes."
Copeland said the software would play "integral roles" in Wessex
Water's IT infrastructure, which will also feature a new asset
management system.
The application will schedule staff for business units covering
clean water, waste water, infrastructure, metering and customer
appointment booking.
The scheduling module was first to go in. This captures all
on-site visits for installation, maintenance and repairs.
Street-level routing provides the best route for technicians
between jobs.
Wessex Water will use the other modules to optimise its
performance. "Knowledge is everything when it comes to managing
your field operation effectively," Copeland said.
But it will also use data collected in the system on travel,
workload, asset repair and maintenance in reports to the industry
regulator Ofwat.