Less than one year into the contract, Trafford Housing Trust (THT) is reaping significant rewards from its decision to use VT Software Solutions’ Servitor Mobile housing repairs management system for its 9,500 properties.  Efficiency in the Trust’s Repairs Service department has increased, leading to greater customer and employee satisfaction, and back-office administration has been reduced, improving employee productivity and reducing costs.

THT manages a complete mix of housing stock in the Trafford area, all formerly owned by Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council.   

Lesley Buckels, Head of Business Support, with the Trust gives the background:  “Trafford Housing Trust’s challenge when it was set up was to implement an integrated contractor management solution which would make a significant contribution to the business transformation programme within the Trust.

Working closely with the NCC Group to act as consultants, we ultimately chose Servitor because VT Software Solutions demonstrated that it could offer added value.  For example, VT Software Solutions was the only supplier with Opti-time appointment scheduling software embedded into its software through a business partnership with Xmbrace.”

“The overall objective of the transformation plan is to harness the benefits of modern computer technology to achieve a strategic change in service delivery combined with operational efficiency gains. The Trust has sought headline benefits and return on investment in the following areas:

• Increased customer satisfaction
• Enhanced employee job satisfaction
• Raised productivity levels
• Improved staff efficiency
• Better management information

Servitor was selected in April 2005 and went live on October 4th of that year, and results show that it is already successfully meeting the Trust’s needs. 

The Servitor housing repairs management system is an integrated contract management, purchasing and stores system with advanced facilities to automate appointment processing and allocation of mobile resources, manage operative performance and monitor customer satisfaction. Servitor Mobile enables operatives to access work request details via handheld PDAs.  Job and customer contact details are displayed and the status of work orders can be updated in real-time by connecting over the GPRS network to Servitor.

The Trust identified handhelds as a key way to improve the performance of the department, and Servitor Mobile is proving fundamental to the success of the repairs service.  THT now has 27 mobile operatives carrying out responsive repairs, and is committed to getting as many people using mobile devices as possible.

By using Servitor, THT hopes to continue to improve customer satisfaction, leading to the retention of existing contracts and development of additional business. Automated job scheduling, using Opti-time has improved performance and the number of jobs being carried out has increased.

Reducing administration costs are an important benefit, achieved by reducing paperwork through the introduction of mobile wireless communications for job dispatch and completion by mobile operatives. 

It was hoped that real-time mobile data and integrated decision analysis would improve decision making, and that management emphasis and resources could be moved from responsive to planned maintenance programmes. Servitor has allowed THT to accurately analyse how the Trust is performing, something that was not previously possible when data was provided from a variety of sources such as spreadsheets and disparate corporate systems, leading to greater opportunities for improvement.

In the future, use of Servitor Mobile may be extended to achieve further benefits through a partnership between THT and Travis Perkins to manage imprest stock on the vans.  Stock would be allocated to jobs and replenished through the mobile devices.