FEATURE
MADE IN THE EAST MIDLANDS The business, GEV Windpower, is an independent
repairer of wind turbine blades, which was growing rapidly but the technicians were still producing inspection reports for customers ‘by hand’. The solution Railston & Co, a Chamber member,
delivered – subsequently named Collabaro – involved developing a software platform that allowed GEV to reduce the time taken to generate reports from four hours to a few seconds. The latest version allows the operator to create and deploy dynamically-integrated screens in real-time to their service engineers in the field. An integrated report design tool allows GEV to automate the production of post-inspection reports. The resulting increase in technician productivity is underpinning the rapid growth of the business. Inspection and maintenance businesses face significant disruption from data-gathering technologies such as IoT and drones, which will reduce the need to visit site for routine inspections, and from the use of AI and machine learning, that will make predictive, rather than routine, maintenance the norm. Moving from ‘average’ product life- spans and service intervals to ones based on actual usage patterns has huge potential to reduce costs. Jason recognised immediately this market disruption as
an opportunity to help traditional maintenance businesses transition away from legacy service applications to a software framework that is able to exploit real-time, multi- channel data processing, which he believes will be required to take full advantage of these evolving new technologies. He says: “Field inspection & SCADA (real-time sensor
data from assets, monitored remotely, which is gradually being superseded by the IoT paradigm) provide two views of the state of an asset. From day one, I saw Collabaro as a framework to merge disparate data sources and present a single ‘version of the truth’ about the state of an asset, essential for automated decision support.” After leaving Kitbag, Chris built up and sold another internet business, Chamber member Evolve Retail, based in
Derby. Evolve has delivered customised ecommerce solutions to dozens of high-profile companies. Having followed Jason’s transition from ecommerce to maintenance management, Chris is also excited about the prospect of high growth in the sector and agreed to join Collabaro as Director of Operations in August. “It’s great to be working with Jason again,” says Chris. “This market is still at the stage where innovation will be
rewarded with growth. Ecommerce, sadly, is now somewhat commoditised and it is becoming a race to the bottom in terms of pricing.”
Chris built up and sold online business Evolve Retail
Marehay Garage Services Ltd All Makes & Models Servicing
Customer service award winning authorised repairers
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COMEAND EXPERIENCE SERVICING MADE
SIMPLE........THE MAREHAYWAY
58 business network December 2018/January 2019
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