Industrial conveyor belt and rubber lining specialist Strathclyde Vulcanising Services (SVS) has rolled out a cloud-based mobile workforce management solution from BigChange. SVS field service engineers have been equipped with rugged tablets as part of a complete management system for paperless working that is improving efficiency, productivity and customer service.
SVS is a specialist in the installation and maintenance of industrial equipment where rubber is a key component such as conveyor systems, chutes and hoppers. Serving industries involved in bulk material handling such as quarrying, energy, demolition, waste and recycling, Glasgow-headquartered SVS operates throughout Scotland and the far north of England.
SVS maintain equipment that is usually critical to plant operation and minimising downtime is vital. SVS engineers provide a rapid same day, 24/7 response service. To reduce downtime, the company also runs a busy workshop for repairs and preparation work and undertakes routine and non-critical maintenance work out of hours.
Due to the nature of their critical work and health and safety requirements, SVS was burdened with large amounts of paperwork. SVS had previously attempted to implement a number of business systems without success; including Microsoft Dynamics.
Iain Barral, MD of SVS commented:
"With an ever-growing amount of paperwork we were desperate to get a system and switch to digital working and we invested heavily only to find that the solutions on offer were too cumbersome or too complex to use and didn’t fulfil our business needs,"
"When we first discovered BigChange in 2018 we realised they had a system that could do everything we needed it to do and more. It was also simple to use and we knew that would overcome the objections we had with previous systems."
SVS has now implemented BigChange as a complete 5 in 1 business solution with back-office software – job booking and scheduling, CRM and quotations - synchronised in real time with field engineers equipped with tablets. For SVS engineers, the JobWatch app replaces all their paper reports from worksheets to health and safety forms, daily vehicle inspections and sign offs.
The system gives SVS complete visibility of all jobs with engineer reports being received in real time from engineers, including job card linked photographs from site. By eliminating paperwork there have been significant gains in the office with one person now able to do the work of two - a doubling of productivity.
The fleet of long wheel base Sprinter vans are fitted with BigChange GPS trackers keeping the office informed on progress and allowing customers to receive texts and emails on the ETA of their engineer.
Barral stated:
"BigChange continues to transform our business. It has made monumental improvements to how we operate, enabled easy remote management of the business throughout COVID-19 and we are still exploring its capabilities for future advancements, adding value to our overall service and customer experience."
"Working hard over the years we have doubled our turnover and with our growth strategy we know BigChange will allow us to easily expand our services."
Barral continued:
"Our customers love the tablets as they provide notable improvements in service, such as providing engineer ETA’s, being able to send completed RAMS to health and safety offices instantly onsite and showing work done with photographs,"
SVS visit sites such as quarries that expose vehicles to extra hazards and to improve fleet management engineers use the JobWatch app for vehicle inspections. This ensures any defects are reported electronically, with photographs, to speed and improve van repairs and maintenance.
SVS is taking advantage of recent integration developments by BigChange.
Barral added:
"The integration between Microsoft Office 365 and BigChange is a brilliant new feature,"
Emails received by SVS in Outlook are immediately visible in the relevant customer record (in BigChange) so everything is in one place and seamlessly linked. SVS are also planning to take advantage of the link with Sage so invoicing will be a simple one click process.
Barral also praises the back-up service provided by BigChange:
"The support from BigChange is fantastic; I really cannot fault it. The development team are also really ahead of the game and we really appreciate the weekly calls checking how we are getting on – that's top notch customer service. During the COVID-19 lockdown BigChange was a godsend and we could not have performed as efficiently without it."
