A Suffolk building maintenance firm has ditched paper job sheets for a pay-as-you-go mobile workforce management solution.
Ipswich-based MC Contracts has deployed the mymobileworkers software, and says it has saved the company 45 man hours per month because engineers no longer have to travel to and from the head office to drop off paper job sheets. Jobs are assigned in the morning via the mobile device and engineers can drive to their jobs immediately. MC Contracts main contract is with a major housing association, and the company is required to respond quickly to maintenance call-outs.
The workforce management app runs on Android and Windows mobile devices. It charges 25p per job, which MC Contracts says makes it more affordable than standard licensed software.
“Historically weve looked at similar systems and they have been cost prohibitive,” says Mark Calver, managing director of MC Contracts. “This model of paying per maintenance visit has allowed us to improve the speed with which we can attend maintenance call-outs which benefits us as a business and also benefits the customer.
“The app means the engineer can access all the correct job information instantly at the touch of a button which saves them having to contact the office repeatedly for job details.” 
All the data captured on site – including the job fault, any parts needed, and a customer signature – is fed into a back office system which allows office staff to monitor what their mobile workers are doing and gives an overview of jobs completed.
“The system also makes it easier to report accurately on performance against the service level agreements and gives us a competitive advantage during the public sector tendering process to meet service level agreements imposed by the local authority,” says Calver.
mymobileworkers founder Graham Whistance says the app could save businesses thousands of pounds as well as saving the environment through less paperwork.
“In this increasingly competitive marketplace productivity is king, and waiting for field workers to touch base and administrative staff to upload job sheets to centralised IT systems just doesnt cut it anymore,” he says.
