Yorkshire drainage services company MW Waste has transformed its business with a mobile system providing 24 hour visibility of its emergency field operations.
Supplied by Leeds-based BigChange, the system provides a complete IT solution that connects rugged tablets running a 5 in 1 mobile app with vehicle tracking and time-stamped photographs from site. MW Waste reports savings of £50k per year and significant customer service improvements since implementing the system, called JobWatch.
MW Waste provide a 24/7 fast response service across the north of England from headquarters just off the A1(M) in North Yorkshire. The company’s wastewater engineers unblock drains, fix broken pumping station equipment and empty septic tanks. With a fleet of specialist vehicles including Jet Vac Tankers, CCTV survey vans and excavators, the company looks after tens of thousands of drainage assets for domestic and commercial clients including Yorkshire Water, Severn Trent, Balfour Beatty and various local councils.
Keith Chadwick, MD of MW Waste says:“With our multi-skilled workforce and range of specialist vehicles and plant we are equipped to deal with just about any task involving wastewater,”“We’ve seen a big increase in demand recently as a result of the tightening up of legislation and we realised we needed to find a system that would help us manage that demand and allow us to expand.”First established in 1995, MW Waste originally managing everything on paper and by calls to mobile phones which was proving inefficient and unreliable. When it was discovered work was being missed or not invoiced due to poor records, the company decided action was needed.
Chadwick says:“BigChange required us to change the way we work but we never looked back and it has completely revolutionised the business. The real surprise was the savings. We reckon it is going to save us a fortune over time and we’re already saving around £50,000 a year. The elimination of paperwork administration, the improved utilisation of resources, accurate invoicing and fuel savings are the most obvious benefits of the system,”MW Waste has recently achieved ISO 9001 and 14001 accreditations for environmental and quality and JobWatch is proving vital to meeting an increasing amount of reporting required by their larger commercial clients. MW Waste like the fact that they can tailor their own worksheets as different clients require different forms. Having standardised feedback via the app drop-down lists is also proving very useful by insuring better consistency and quality of data.
Vehicles are equipped with BigChange satellite trackers giving the office real-time view of the fleet with accurate ETA information. The tablets provide navigation to site and the app includes site safety workflows and is used to take time-stamped and geo-referenced photographs linked to each job card.
Ben Bromfield, Operations Manager says:“Using the tablets to take photographs on site showing before and after work and at every stage if required. This gives an immediate visual record and we can advise on jobs directly from the office and the images are attached to the job cards for the customer to clearly see the work has been done,”Bromfield adds:“The system is brilliant for allocating jobs and when vehicles are already out we can quickly view their location and job progress to see if another job can be done on the route back. This means we are not only more reactive but we are able to do more jobs a day. Now we have it, I don’t think we could operate without JobWatch.”MW Waste maintain their own vehicles and the tablets are used for daily vehicle defect inspections. The JobWatch inspection reports are received by the fleet manager and the workshop is immediately made aware of any maintenance requirements. The work schedular meanwhile can immediately see on-screen any non-availability of vehicles so clashes in job scheduling are avoided.
Job Watch gives MW Waste complete visibility of every job and this is especially useful when taking calls from customers.
Bromfield explains:“We can view the job details and any history to immediately answer any questions; that’s impressive customer service. We also can instantly check all the facts if issues are raised and we have evidence of a job done at our fingertips,”Chadwick says:“BigChange has made my life a lot easier.”“With easy access anytime, anywhere we really feel we are in control of the business. I no longer have to worry things that used to take hours out of my day; everything is invoiced correctly and invoice queries are now very much a thing of the past. Customers are happier and that is ensuring we get repeat work and good referrals.”
