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As an ambitious company with a hunger for growth, it was keen to expolore new ways of making time an cost savings, and honing a more responsive customer service.
The Desk Centre is one of the UK's leading suppliers of office furniture. The Birkenhead-based company offers a total furniture solution, from space planning and design to delivery, assembly and installation. Its customer base spans schools and universities, local authorities, the NHS, blue chip corporate and industrial clients.
Employing 45 people, The Desk Centre relies on an eight strong vehicle fleet to serve its geographically diverse customers.
As an ambitious company with a hunger for growth, it was keen to explore new ways of making time and cost savings, and honing a more responsive customer service. This prompted the purchase of a the Navman Wireless fleet management system provided by ETS Business Solutions. Within just a few weeks, staff were astonished by the results.
"We were crying out for a product that could give us a complete picture of where our staff were and what they were doing."
Information at a glance
The head office logistics team have been able to keep track of their mobile workforce with greater accuracy and a minimum of effort.
Steve Osborne, Logistics Manager, explained "Our crews spend a considerable amount of time on the road, so we were crying out for a product that could give us a complete picture of where our staff were and what they were doing."
"We previously made expensive and time consuming mobile phone calls, which were never totally reliable. Now we can see at a glance precisely where each team is and what stage they're at with a job."
Real-time data for each vehicle, from location to travelling speed, is displayed on-screen at the office, as well as on individual PC's. Staff have found the display screens and associated Windows based software easy and intuitive to use.
Thanks to the new technology, customers phoning up for an estimated delivery time can now receive an immediate answer.
Steve said: "Customers are very impressed, and sometimes more than a little surprised, when you tell them exactly how far away a crew is. It gives them an extra feeling of reassurance."
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Putting the business under the microscope
Steve and his colleagues are exploring a wealth of new data the system provides to make efficiency gains. Its ability to automatically compile activity reports for each crew, covering a wide range of parameters, has helped streamline the operation.
He said "I now study weekly activity reports for each crew, which are more accurate and detailed than anything we've been used to. This is helping us gain new insights into our business, and the way we do things.
"For example, I'm now able to look at the precise routes taken for longer journeys, and I sit down with staff at the end of the week to see if these can be improved to improve fuel costs.
"I can also see how long each job has taken, and compare it with the benchmark time for a job of that type. If a crew is unavoidably detained at a job, they know they need to tell us immediately - because now we can immediately spot when a job is running over."
He added "I've found you can engage with the Navman system on a lot of different levels. The more proactively you use it, the better it is."
"This was never about trying to breathe down people's necks. It was about getting the tools in place to help us manage our teams and resources more effectively."
Involving the workforce
Although convinced of the business argument, Steve recognised that the intrioduction of tracking technology needed to be handled sensitively with the wider workforce - many of whom have been with the company for years.
For this reason, Steve and Managing Director John Davies made a determined effort to involve employees from an early stage.
Steve recalled: "We made sure the crews felt comfortable with the product by sitting down with them to explain what we wanted to do, and why. We pointed out the commercial advantages of the system, which are in everyone's interests, not just the senior management.
"This was never about trying to breathe down people's necks. It was about getting the tools in place to help us manage our teams and resources more effectively. Everyone is on board with what we are doing."
A system that pays for itself
Steve is confident the system will pay for itself in less than six months, thanks to the fuel savings, reduced mobile phone bills and less time wastage.
"I expect our mobile phone bill alone to be cut by a third," he said. "On top of that, we'll be able to make substantial fuel savings by monitoring our routes more closely.
"However, the most exciting thing about the system is that it's already reduced the number of wasted hours, which means we can fit in more jobs and drive up profits."
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