Case study: Flowrite

Challenges

Flowrite Services Ltd, the UK’s leading national refrigeration and air conditioning specialists, needed a service management system that would improve the management of their customers’ assets and optimise its service operation for planned and reactive maintenance.

Their previous system was causing unproductive time in the field and back office. Planning was manual and communication was not always accurate, resulting in not satisfying customers’ critical service and data requirements.

Solution and Benefits

Aeromark’s real-time service management platform offered a smarter mobile workforce capability to schedule, manage, and communicate with engineers.

Flowrite now has a system that enables them to deliver exceptional service and provides accurate data and real-time information to ensure jobs are planned quickly and efficiently.

As a result, overall productivity has improved by 50%.

“Aeromark has given us unprecedented control of our operations and insight into the performance of our business. This has enabled us to increase profitability by helping us to make key strategic decisions about the work we do and how we deliver it”

Dan Hudson Operations Director, Flowrite Services Ltd

The Foundation of Flowrite’s Service Delivery

Aeromark’s service management platform provides Flowrite with a seamless end-to-end solution for Asset Management, Workforce Scheduling, QR codes, integrated Mobile Workflows, Vehicle Tracking, and Mobility Apps to connect engineers to the office. It is now the foundation of service delivery to Flowrite’s customers; from the initial call all the way through to final invoicing.

Real-time Control of Asset Management and Costs

Each asset is given a unique asset tag for us to track every visit, every fault, and every PPM service, through our service desk. This means every item of equipment we service has a full history including works carried out, age, warranty monitor, cost, spend, and quotations logged against the item.

This facilitates stricter cost controls, reduction in breakdowns, and bespoke reporting, such as gas usage.

This dynamic and live management of our customers’ assets allows us to build up a service history from day one, plan maintenance checks to prevent the equipment from breaking down; and have a complete lifecycle cost of individual assets allowing key decisions to be made about capital replacement.”

“Aeromark manages the lifecycle of the service request from the initial call to our helpdesk, through to final completion and invoicing, showing a full audit trail of actions along the way. This history is integrated with the engineer’s tablet, so they have full information of what has previously occurred, prior to attending a job”.

Aeromark modules used by Flowrite

Customers can track their jobs via portals

Each customers and service partners are provided with their own bespoke portal providing access to our Aeromark system.

This enables them to track all the activities on their portfolio and monitor the performance of their contracts, ensuring consistent, real-time information is provided.

We are constantly improving these portals to meet customers’ specific process requests and the requirements of each site. Through this facility we can embed our core behaviours of trust and visibility within the business from the start of each engineering task.”

Scheduling expertise

One of the things that puts the Aeromark solution above our competition is dynamic scheduling. It allows for a slicker service by instantaneously communicating the tasks requirement to Flowrite's engineers through their tablet as soon as it is logged by our helpdesk – taking the paperwork out of scheduling.

The system suggests the nearest available engineers with the correct skills for the task, providing a list of those that can provide the promptest attendance via the most efficient route.

When reactive callouts are received, Aeromark’s multi-intervention feature identifies other work at, or near, the same location. Having the visibility to schedule these jobs to be done at the same time improves both our engineers’ productivity and overall efficiency as a business.

Flowrite are also able to easily see when jobs have been scheduled outside their SLA. Having clear visibility, of ‘set to fail’ jobs, enables them to take quick corrective action to meet our targets and ensure customer satisfaction.

More efficient quoting

Flowrite’s survey workflow enables engineers and subcontractors to quickly and easily compile a comprehensive survey of the job which automatically produces a bill of materials and quotation, including parts and labour rates.

“We now turn quotes around within hours. Our workflow also prioritises urgent business critical quotes. Automating and speeding up the process means customers approve them faster and we in turn increase the number of jobs we do”

Vicky Pluck Customer Service & Performance Director, Flowrite Services Ltd

Automatically created job sheets

Via their tablets, engineers can compile a photographic record of key property information and any additional remedials required on site. This forms part of the automatically created job sheet and audit trail to provide a full understanding of the work carried out.

Subcontractors access Flowrite‘s web-based sub-contractor portal via their phones to view jobs, add costs and update job details when completed.

Real-time visibility of service levels

Aeromark provides a real-time view of the status of jobs, enabling schedules to be optimised as the day progresses. When engineers’ complete jobs quicker than expected, additional calls can be added to their day.

Equally when jobs overrun, potentially putting the remaining schedule at risk, work can be reallocated to other available engineers; ensuring commitments made to customers are met and service productivity is maximised.

Van stock management

Vans stock levels are monitored through the Aeromark system. A daily report of stock used is generated and sent to our parts supplier for daily van stock replenishment straight to the back of our engineers’ vehicles. This means that our company’s vans are never without the critical stock required to enable our engineers to resolve any routine service issues as rapidly as possible.

Dynamic monitoring of KPIs

Aeromark provides seamless visibility of the job’s progress whilst the engineer is still on site. As a single point of information, it has the facility to report on each of our service performance areas and is therefore an ideal tool for dynamic monitoring of contract KPIs and SLAs.

Aeromark has improved the way we work on so many levels including engineer performance. We used to pay engineers when they told us their shift ended. Now the tracking software reports when van engines are switched off at the end of day and that creates the trigger point for end of shift, making the reporting of hours worked more accurate. We monitor first-time fix rates, number of jobs per day, recalls on jobs, number of second visits, average number of unproductive hours – we even calculate engineers’ bonus payments from the KPI reporting the system provides.

High first-time fix rates

Today, thanks to Aeromark, Flowrite has one of the highest first-time fix rates in the industry. The system provides all the information required, including site history, to ensure engineers have the right information, every time.

This results in greater efficiency, accurate parts ordering and better first-time fix rates; even the job sheets are created in real-time and are emailed as the engineer leaves the job.

Unprecedented control of operations

We can monitor the performance of our contracts at every level, from stock management, mileage and fuel consumption through to individual reporting on each asset and overall budgetary cost control. Seamless automated workflows manage our processes and guide staff and subcontractors to complete tasks efficiently, ensuring the right actions take place. We have dedicated workflows for surveys, quotes, quotes outstanding, work in progress, commercial sign-off and invoicing. This allows us to act a lot quicker, increases the productivity of our business and provides an important digital audit trail.