London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

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Borough Construction, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Having conducted a competitive evaluation of possible solutions, Borough Construction chose to migrate to Fujitsu's ConSol-ePlus solution, the new Windows-based version of ConSol.

What was the Challenge and Opportunity?

Located to the West of London, Hammersmith & Fulham is a vibrant and diverse community, with a rich cultural heritage and an enviable choice of arts and entertainments venues, including three professional football clubs. The Borough Council is responsible for providing education, housing, environmental and social services to over 170,000 people.

In line with the Government's 'Decent Homes Standard' initiative, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham created an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), Hammersmith & Fulham Housing Management Services (HFHMS), tasked with improving the standard of council homes by 2010. In support of this organisation, Borough Construction undertakes all of the repair and safety services needed to maintain the Council's 18,000 tenanted and leasehold properties.

“The overriding aim of Borough Construction is to deliver best value services to Housing Management Services,” says Bill Fairhall, Head of Services, Borough Construction. “To that end, we depend heavily on our IT systems to manage how our services are controlled and delivered. While our main support application, ConSol, worked very well and was extremely reliable, it was 14 years old and so it would have been difficult to integrate it with any new applications. What we needed was a modern system that offered the same functionality, but which was also flexible, easy to operate, future proofed and fully supported.”

What was the Solution?

Having conducted a competitive evaluation of possible solutions, Borough Construction chose to migrate to Fujitsu's ConSol-ePlus solution, the new Windows-based version of ConSol.

ConSol-ePlus enables Direct Service Organisations (DSOs) to control the areas of job receipt, job progression, job costing, sub-contractor control and payment, as well as providing stock control and purchase order management. Borough Construction also chose to implement the additional module for appointment scheduling, providing a diary function that will allow 'time slots' to be allocated to its operatives and partnered subcontractors, either directly or from its clients’ systems, in order to complete each work order. With the addition of ConSol-ePlus' mobile data module, Borough Construction's operatives will also be able to receive works orders and notify completion of works over a radio data network, using hand-held devices.

“Having successfully migrated to ConSol-ePlus in just three months we now have a modern system that will act as the core of our operations for at least the next seven years,” comments Bill Fairhall. “With Fujitsu's continued partnership we are extremely well positioned to support the evolving needs of our business and deliver the best value and highest quality service to Hammersmith & Fulham Housing Management Services.”

Chris Nolan, Projects & Quality Manager, Borough Construction, adds, “ConSol-ePlus has empowered our managers with accurate and up-to-date information, so that they can closely monitor performance and address any issues rapidly. Its open architecture also gives us a platform on which to start exploiting new, best-of-breed applications, closer links with our clients and sub-contractors, including Housing Management Services' new housing repairs order system, and even direct communication with our end customers using the web.”

Borough Construction is also set to reap significant benefits from ConSol-ePlus' ability to instantly capture and share.
“Nowadays, people want to know exactly what's happening on their jobs,” explains Bill Fairhall, “so we need to answer their queries as and when they are raised. There are also a growing number of regulations and best value indicators that we must comply with, which mean that every job needs to have an auditable trail covering its entire history. This is no small task when you're handling over 65,000 small value jobs a year. However, ConSol-ePlus will enable us to do all of this, whilst also saving us significant costs in re-entering and administering data.

“By next year, we aim to be in a position where our field staff will receive a complete eight-hour work schedule everyday before they leave home, which they will be able to update using hand-held devices, so they'll only need to come back to the depot to restock and be debriefed. We expect that this will lead to real productivity benefits of at least one hour a day per person, and also ensure that our customers get a demonstrably first class service.”

What Benefits Resulted?

The partnership with Fujitsu will enable Borough Construction to realise a number of significant benefits:

• Increased productivity - the automation of manual systems will improve appointment keeping and job completion times by 10%, saving £30,000 a year
• Improved resource usage - providing operatives with a pre-planned, localised daily schedule of activities will save over 10% of staff time and avoid duplicate allocation of resources
• Greater data integrity - information will be instantly captured on site and made available to managers and clients for action and analysis, leading to savings of £20,000 a year
• Centralised information sharing - seamless links to client and sub-contractor systems minimise the time, costs and risks of data re-entry and duplication
• Reduced administration costs - electronic data capture and re-use saves the time and cost of fax transmission, paper forms and document storage
• Improved customer service - customers will be given a realistic appointment time for any work and queries can be dealt with when raised
• Full accountability - all jobs or assignments have a complete audit trail in compliance with the latest government regulations
• Effective decision making - advanced reporting tools allow rapid analysis of up-to-date information, improving resource management and deployment
• Long term return on investment - the system can easily be tailored and new best-of-breed applications incorporated to meet evolving business needs.

Bill Fairhall says, “The bottom line is that using Fujitsu's ConSol-ePlus solution is enabling our services to become increasingly responsive and cost-effective, both in the field and at a management level, by ensuring that the right people get the right information at the right time. We now have a firm basis for our future IT strategy together with a strategic partner that actively wants to work with us to develop the product still further, in order to put us at the cutting-edge of competitiveness.”

How was the Solution Delivered?

The migration to ConSol-ePlus was completed in just three months and, despite the aggressive timescales, the new system went live without any problems. “The nice thing about the changeover was that our client, Housing Management Services, didn't know we'd done it, even though we interface into its own systems,” comments Bill Fairhall.

Key to the smooth transition was the development of a demonstration system, which allowed each of the programme modules to be converted, tested and modified to suit the end users. Barry Shepherd, Store Manager, Borough Construction, continues, “Unlike some suppliers, Fujitsu was as keen to get it right as we were. The size of the company and its willingness to draw knowledge in from across the organisation also bred confidence in us.”

What Skills were Involved?

With over 30 years experience of supporting the needs of government departments and local authorities, Fujitsu has a proven track record in providing complex systems integration services and mobile solutions that reduce costs, improve productivity and customer services and deliver a compelling return on investment.

“Having worked with us for over ten years, Fujitsu knows the ins and outs of our organisation, its operating costs and the challenges we face,” says Chris Nolan. “As a result, it can often pre-empt our needs and has helped us immensely by openly sharing its knowledge well beyond the bounds of the original contract. We simply could not replicate what Fujitsu does in-house. Our next task is to sit down with Fujitsu to improve our working procedures still further and marry them up with Housing Management Services and the Council's proposed Call Centre operation.”

Bill Fairhall confirms, “Having Fujitsu as a partner allows us to concentrate on running our business, while Fujitsu takes care of the technology. It has such a huge knowledge and experience of the public sector and other industries, and knows our requirements so well, that it can tailor make our IT systems almost without asking.”