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DFP Services has transformed its business with the latest cloud and mobile technology.

BigChange DFP services employee in vehicle

With the 5 in 1 system from Leeds-based BigChange, DFP has equipped its engineers with rugged tablets as part of a fully digital system connected in real time to the company’s national service centre in Durham. The paperless system has boosted efficiency, reduced administrative work and improved engineer productivity.

With origins in fire protection, DFP installs, services and maintains equipment operating a 24/7 planned and reactive services for gas, heating, plumbing and alarms. The company a major provider to services in the care home sector and with 30 percent annual growth, DFP was recently recognised as one of the top 50 growing businesses in the northeast of England.

The BigChange solution has completely replaced five other systems including systems for service management, vehicle tracking and certification. JobWatch now handles everything from the original services request through to invoicing; jobs are now booked, allocated and managed with the system which allows DFP engineers to operate independently around the clock.

Heather Taylor, Commercial Manager at DFP, says:

“Managing a 24 hour service has always been difficult out of hours but with JobWatch we can always see what is going on and deal with things such as emergencies by simply accessing the system from our mobiles,”

“Also engineers manage everything from their devices so it means they can work fairly independently. Without having to rely on the office so much they can get on with their work; that has boosted productivity and job satisfaction.”

The company employs 45 engineers and 76 staff. The fleet comprises mainly Ford Transit with a few Mitsibishi L200 pick-ups; all fitted with BigChange trackers and tablet cradles for navigation and communication on route. As well as reporting, the tablets are useful for taking photographs of work done and relative state of the site on arrival and on departure.

Jon Paul Seed, Managing Director at DFP Services, says:

“BigChange provides a number of key operational and business benefits. Always knowing what is going on is of course really helpful but so is the management information and traceability that the system offers,”

“We can now review the business properly and Big Data reports allow us to drill-down by customer, by engineer and any other criteria so we can accurately assess performance and profitability. We simply couldn’t do this before.”

Due to the nature of their work certification is vitally important with the BigChange automated certificates have been introduced. Previously certificates were issued with invoices and that could be a week later. Certificates have to be provided for everything from gas safety, fire alarms, emergency lighting and fire extinguisher, with often multiple certificates in each area.

The fact that BigChange is web based is providing other significant benefits as Taylor explains:

“We have just opened an office in Leeds and because BigChange is a cloud solution setting up the office was really easy. IT-wise we were up and running pretty much instantly; connected and fully synchronised to a single system. That was a real revelation and BigChange gives us the flexibility to expand freely and nationally in the future.”

The digitisation is also helping DFP expand the business as within tenders there is often request for an online portal and the provision of electronic documentation/certificates.

Taylor, says:

“The system has been a real help for Bid writing as now we can provide exactly what customers want; we can now tick every box. BigChange means we are no longer restricted as we can offer everything the customer needs. It is especially useful when we need to show we can provide things like customer feedback or an online portal, plus it helps us comply with our ISO 1401 certification for paperless working. All in all BigChange has proved brilliant for competing tenders.”

DFP is also seeing big benefits from the move to the cloud and apart from the obvious benefits of an always-on, accessible-anywhere system, the company found it invaluable for business expansion.

Sherwoods Builds a Business Case for a BigChange One-Stop Management System

BigChange Sherwoods employee

Sherwoods, the FM building services company, has assisted its business with a 5 in 1 mobile management system from BigChange.

Sherwoods’ field service engineers are equipped with the latest ruggedised tablets running a completely paper-free system. The mobiles are live connected to the cloud hosting a complete management solution from BigChange that covers everything from CRM to routing, purchasing, job scheduling, certification and invoicing.

Founded in 1970, with a 48 year history and still family owned, Sherwoods provides a genuine one-stop-shop range of services and has grown to become one of the fastest growing sustainable FM building services providers, covering all of the South West UK. The company has grown organically with successful apprenticeships underpinning growth.

Kevin Sherwood, Managing Director of Sherwoods, comments:

“We invest in people as our primary focus, our people are everything. They are central to our success and our future. Many of our key people started with us as apprentices, with 2 of these apprentices now Directors and owners.”

“By coincidence it was the BBC show The Apprentice that increased our interest in BigChange when we read one of the show’s winners set up a new business utilising BigChange. We also discovered that the Marketing Manager at BigChange also starred on the show.”

Sherwoods has long been an early adopter of technology with vehicle tracking first employed back in 2003, and digital service management software and PDAs employed across all operations since 2007.

Sherwood explains:

“When we saw BigChange for the first time we realised that the JobWatch apps could really help us make a positive difference, and assist our mission to become the FM Building services partner and employer of choice across the UK Southwest region.”

“The BigChange team understood logistics and why real time, open, accessible, transparent and visible information is vital to us continuously improving communication, managing compliance and risk, and delivering the best service experience possible for everyone involved throughout the life of a job.”

Sherwoods has a 35-strong team of mobile field engineers, residing across the region and working from home providing comprehensive coverage across the UK South West region, including Hampshire, Bristol, South Wales and Cornwall and all postcodes in between. Services include Compliance, PPM, Project, planned & reactive maintenance 24-7 365 days a year.

Being a true one-stop-shop, the Sherwoods’ multi-skilled, in-house directly employed team of 50 take care of everything from a permanently manned Opsdesk, roofing, electrical, plumbing, drainage, gas, oil, LPG, HVAC and all exterior and interior building fabric. ‘Roof to Drains and everything in between’

Sherwoods’ mobile field engineers use JobWatch for everything from timesheets, jobsheets, signature capture and certification – with photographs. JobWatch is used 100% of the time to provide an evidential record of all works, with GDPR compliant, real time data, always available online.

Sherwood added:

“We really like the fact that with JobWatch we write our own workflows and customise it for everything we do. It is a flexible system and being a cloud service, it allows us to grow in line with our sustainability agenda without being burdened by IT capability or capacity.”

“The apps and tracking are only one part of what BigChange provides; it is a complete end-to-end solution. BigChange like to call it a 5 in 1 system but it is actually a lot more than that. For us it provides a seamless solution between our office, field, client and suppliers, that is used all the way from initial customer enquiry through all communication to resource management, procurement, service delivery, KPI reporting and invoicing.”

With conservative plans to double the business turnover by 2022, Sherwoods work with private and public organisations, with a diversity of clients and sectors that include local, regional, national and international brands.

Sherwood states:

“Our company values are to be adaptable, fun, honest and committed; we live and breathe these values. Those are values we see in BigChange as well, and it makes for a good partnership.”

“The team at BigChange are open and transparent and they want their clients to talk to each other to improve each business and their product. JobWatch facilitates our mission and vision and shows our values providing data that is open and accessible. We share GDPR compliant data with our clients; nothing hidden, we are completely transparent, building trust which is also completely central to everything we do, and always will be.”

FSH Builds a Smarter Future with BigChange Mobile Workforce Technology

BigChange FSH employee holding tablet

FSH, the one-stop construction company servicing the north of England, has transformed its business with a 5 in 1 management system from BigChange.

Operating as a cloud service linked to mobile apps used by workers onsite, the solution provides FSH with real time operational information for improving efficiency, productivity and service.

Employing 132 mobile tradesmen and 65 office staff, the Castleford headquartered company has regional offices in Hull, Liverpool and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. FSH specialises in insurance-related work, typically repairing flood or fire damaged properties. A new construction arm handing reactive maintenance work is also driving expansion in sectors such as social housing and education.

With a fleet of 132 BigChange equipped vehicles providing live data for managing operations, tradesmen are being equipped with rugged Samsung tablets running JobWatch. Mobile apps completely replace paperwork with live data reporting and the devices capture useful time and location stamped photographs, as well as customer signatures.

Matthew Cappleman, Managing Director of FSH, comments:

“We work mainly for the UK’s biggest insurance firms and providing a consistent high quality rebuild and refurbishment service is absolutely vital,”

“The monitoring and reporting of our work on site is however just as important and that’s where BigChange comes in. It gives real-time visibility of every job and provides an audit trail of all work. That means we can not only manage work better and improve customer service, but we can also provide insurers with immediate job updates and evidence of work done.”

Operationally JobWatch is used from job start to completion with tradesmen receiving jobs scheduled by BigChange. The devices are used for daily vehicle checks and on departure the tablets are clipped in dashboard cradles to provide navigation to the job location. On arrival, JobWatch ensures the tradesman completes a risk assessment and captures photographs showing the current state of the work site – with photographs repeated at the end of the day.

Cappleman added:

“BigChange really does expedite everything as our tradesman can go straight to the job and put in a full, productive 8 hour day. The system also ensures good work discipline and good practice as the tradesmen are in effect self-managing their work, backed up with their reports and photographs. With JobWatch there is no more sitting around and managers no longer need to go onsite to check the work. Everyone wins.”

With the entire fleet tracked, FSH has an instant view of all vehicle locations. This allows tradesmen working on reactive maintenance to be dynamically re-scheduled to urgent jobs, gives customer services valuable insight into any delays arriving onsite and also helps in the quick retrieval of stolen vans. However according to FSH, it’s the logged data that is of particular value.

Matthew Cappleman continued:

“BigChange logs vehicle movements so we’ve always got evidence of arrival and departure times should queries arise. The data helps us check timesheets, monitor unauthorised mileage and spot poor driving. With weekly driver performance reports we have seen an all-around improvement in driving and not only is that good for staff safety on the road but ultimately it means less vehicle wear and tear and better fuel consumption.”

Stuart Welburn, Finance Director at FSH agrees that BigChange has had a positive impact, added:

“Certainly BigChange has been good for business and we estimate efficiency gains of 2 or 3 percent. However, we anticipate it will improve our profitability not only through better utilisation of our resources, but by generally improving our services to continually improve our reputation and win more business.”

BigChange FSH employee in van