our parent company so our go live date had to align with their delivery timescales.


Rob: We did have some technical issues with the actual authentication as well, based on the operating system of the devices we were using. The APN company overcame that by adjusting the authentication method, so we had a lot of support from them in troubleshooting problems.


Simon: We also had quite a bad supply issue. Because our technicians have paint or thinners on their gloves we couldn’t give them a traditional touch screen, so it had to be stylus driven. And because of the software we wanted to use with the mobile workflows, it had to be a Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. It also had to have a camera that could change its orientation because we need the majority of our pictures taken in landscape. Amazingly we could only find one device that would meet this criteria, and that had actually been discontinued about six months earlier.


So, we spent two years hunting for reconditioned devices! We ended up acquiring them from all sorts of places. Thankfully our sister company Autoglass was changing its estate of devices, so rather than sell the devices on to someone who is going to refurbish them and who would have then sold them back to us for four times the price, the company agreed to let us have them, which we were quite happy to do. So our supply issues were brought to an end.


Q So have you seen any benefits from the project so far?


Simon: Yes! But at first there were teething problems because it was a new way of working.


Rob: However, once they undertook the training and understood why it was being done, they understood the benefits for them as well. It was positioned to them as an upgrade, a way of making the admin side of the job easier to complete.


Q: So users are getting used to the new system now?


Simon: One of the problems we’ve faced is that those in the field aren’t necessarily computer literate. They’re body shop technicians that are used to beating, spraying or polishing a panel and are out of their comfort zone having to record every step of their work on a PDA.


Rob: Some of our guys have never used a computer before – they’re 50/55 and have


6 December 2012 | Volume 22 – Issue 4


worked in a body shop since they left school and we’re suddenly giving them this PDA. It’s a learning experience for everyone really. Even the guys who know how to use PDAs had issues with the new processes initially. Though once they’ve gone through the training, they’re quite happy with it. It’s taken a few weeks, but they’ve settled down now and aren’t having many issues.


Simon: The other day we were looking at the amount of helpdesk tickets that were getting raised and when the project went live. The number of tickets probably doubled over the course of a month as the training went on. But then you could see, about a month after that, they’d dropped down to 77% of the pre-training level so we have less issues than before now too. A 23% drop in tickets was absolutely amazing.


Q: So how was the rollout planned/ implemented?


Rob: Because our technicians are based out in the field all across the country, it’s very difficult to get them into one central place for training. Plus, if they’re all off the road productivity is reduced, so we had to try to find the best medium.


Training was rolled out in small batches to allow different teams to come into head office for the courses. For those further away – in the north of England and Scotland – we found a more central base for them to attend training. This gave us the ability to spread the training around and get everybody up to speed as quickly as possible, whilst making them feel comfortable with the product before they went out to use it.


Q: And has the company seen any benefits yet?


Simon: There has definitely been an increase in productivity: the average amount of jobs per week has gone up, which is great.


One of the


problems we’ve faced is that those in the field aren’t necessarily computer literate


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