NDL

Weaver Vale wins award for mobile working

Weaver Vale Housing Trust has won the Technology Award at the Business After Hours Small Business Awards. This accolade recognises its pioneering use of mobile working within its housing repairs service. NDL’s integration and mobile technology is being used to enable its repairs team to access and update central applications while working out in the community.

Weaver Vale Housing Trust is responsible for dealing with around 1,500 customer repairs each month in its properties across Cheshire. The Trust identified that it needed a more cost-effective and flexible system to deal with housing repairs. It therefore implemented a new appointments and mobile working system, aimed at improving the speed and efficiency of repair work as well as increasing customer satisfaction.

NDL’s awi technology was selected to integrate the existing Orchard arcHouse and Xmbrace Opti-time applications and then to enable remote access for the repairs team from PDAs. Customer repair appointments are made at the Trust’s head office, and data about these jobs then downloaded automatically each day on to field workers’ PDAs. Tradesmen are therefore able to conduct customer visits and update back-office applications without having to travel to the office. It has been estimated this has decreased ‘time to fix’ from 28 to 10 days, as well as reducing costs and the Trust’s carbon footprint through reduced travel and paper.

Steve Towers, Responsive Repairs Manager at Weaver Vale, commented: “Over the last couple of years the Trust has transformed and modernised its working practices through major investment in mobile working technology The Trust strives to continually better our customer services so we are absolutely delighted to receive this award.”

Declan Grogan, Managing Director of NDL, commented: “Weaver Vale has harnessed the power of NDL’s technology to transform its housing repair service. Its aim was to transform service delivery while also saving costs: this accolade underlines its success in achieving those aims.”

Business After Hours is a networking club based in Cheshire and North Wales. Its Small Business Awards, which are held annually, are designed to recognise and celebrate the successes of small businesses in the region.

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