Customers

RLC-Langford Lodge

“Team Solutionz was able to rapidly develop a system that made sure we had control of the whole process from initial inquiry through enabling all internal departments to reply in a timely manner. This ensured the final quote met deadlines set by the customer”

The Challenge

RLC Engineering Group (RLC) is a world class provider of components and services to the Aerospace Industry. Founded in 1955 with sales in excess of £70m and over 700 employees, the Group provides manufacturing, supply chain management and project management capabilities to many of the major aerospace companies in Europe and North America.

RLC identified a need for a quotation estimating system to replace a manual system where the information was captured on printed forms that were filed away in lever-arch files. It was vital that the solution was efficient, information was readily available and notifications were sent in automatically.

The Solution

Team Solutionz Ltd designed a fully functional contract management system. The key functionality of the system included:

• Straight-forward forms for ease of data capture
• Single information repository that is fully searchable and enables quick and efficient access to all relevant quote data
• Integrated workflow for price requests and quote approval including full integration with the RLC email system
• Graphical management reports

The Benefits

The system has increased efficiency and productivity. The integrated workflow now means responses to quote requests are collated quickly and easily.

The system helps RLC maintain competitive advantage. By reducing the time required to produce finished quotes, RLC can be confident quotes are delivered in a timely fashion reinforcing their professionalism with their clients.

Reduced costs. More time can now be spent focusing on the content of the quotes, ensuring RLC stay competitive in their marketplace.

The system has improved security of quote data. By centralising data capture and processing, both the security and backup strategy are enhanced.

“We have found the system to be very flexible, easy to customise and cost effective” – Michael Rutledge, IT manager of RLC.

Meridian Utilities

Since the inception of the ‘Superbundle Contract’ Team Solutionz has been invaluable. The fact that Team Solutionz are on-site and readily available allows changes to be made, problems solved and advice sought without delay, directly contributing to the overall success of the contract. – Maggie Thomson (General Manager)

The Challenge

Meridian Utilities were awarded a £50 million contract to provide maintenance services to NI Water. As part of the tendering process for this contract Meridian placed significant emphasis on introducing IT Systems and Controls, and enhanced reporting for NI Water.

The commitments and requirements for Meridian are summarised as follows:

To provide job controls to manage all work orders, including scheduling, work in progress (WIP), and invoicing of work across a number of different contract areas.
• Management of digital photographs.
• Remote working and collaboration across a number of sites, including the ability for systems to replicate and communicate with each other.
• Provide NI Water with high visibility financial reporting and KPI reports.
• Provide Meridian with Business Intelligence reports in order to assist key decision making.
• Create a mobile work management system.
• Provide backup and disaster recover solutions.

The Solution

In order to implement and provide the required solutions this project not only required leading edge technological solutions, but more importantly a deep understanding of the business and NI Water contract. With the critical timeframe of the project, it was also important to project manage the work, manage client expectations and prioritise work with realistic time scales for completion.

In understanding the business, Team Solutionz has been able to create a number of bespoke job control systems to meet our clients’ control and reporting requirements. With the business understanding gained upfront, Team Solutionz was able to create a generic control system that was easy to modify for each of the control systems, providing a more cost effective and more rapid solution.

In addition Team Solutionz set-up a helpdesk system to support the new control systems. Team Solutionz’ proactive and analytical approach to the helpdesk system has resulted in projects and procedures being introduced in order to reduce support and ultimately save money through process automation.

With the rapid expansion of Meridian, Team Solutionz had to install a new LAN and upgrade the internet to ensure the IT infrastructure could meet the demands of the growing business. In addition, Team Solutionz managed the backup and disaster recovery of the newly created systems.

The Result

Meridian’s Control systems are now receiving, scheduling and processing all work orders from NI Water. Extensive reporting has been developed for both NI Water and Meridian, enabling our client to make fully informed decisions. Our client is able to view WIP at any time, and has detailed cost analysis on each squad and area of the business, providing critical information on company performance.

The Mobile Work Management system implemented has greatly benefited Meridian Utilities, providing them with improved control over squads and more efficient data transfer/updates, decreasing the level of administration required at the Meridian headquarters.

Team Solutionz also provided a complete solution from inception, development, implementation and support. In addition Team Solutionz implemented necessary infrastructure changes in order for our client to meet their contractual obligations.

Larne Borough Council

The project to implement Accident Tracker was handled very professionally by Team Solutionz staff. At each stage, they were available to guide us until the system was being used effectively by our staff.

I have been working with Team Solutionz since September 2008 to help project manage the implementation of Accident Tracker.

Larne Borough Council relied on a paper-based accident reporting system prior to using Accident Tracker. This meant that accident/incident recording and reporting was a labour intensive process and prone to user error. Considerable time was spent re-keying accident information into spreadsheets in an attempt to provide trend analysis. All reminders to carry out or complete corrective actions had to be handled manually.

The project started with a full analysis of the requirements of Larne Borough Council. With this information, Team Solutionz designed and implemented a fully customised version of Accident Tracker that met the needs of our organisation.

The introduction of web-based Accident Tracker has enabled staff to record and manage accident/incident and near misses in an efficient and systematic way throughout the Council.

Because it is simple to use, staff have been taught in less than two hours how to complete an accident report and create corrective actions.

Accident Tracker has automated the Accident Management process leading to faster input and reporting time. Staff are notified and reminded until corrective actions have been completed which helps facilitate a safer environment for Council staff and rate payers alike.

Today, Larne Borough Council has full visibility of the accident statistics and the status of each individual Accident.

Lorraine King, Human Resource Assistant

Larne Borough Council

Omagh District Council

“Using the Absence Tracker, we can identify absence issues when they occur and respond accordingly. It allows us for the first time to empower managers to take responsibility for managing departmental absences and notifications ensure they are kept up to date.”

The Challenge

Omagh District Council have continually been reviewing systems and procedures in respect of recording and managing sickness related absences and felt that existing systems were not capable of monitoring employee absences in a timely manner. Nor was it possible to provide up to date statistics for Managers.

Before using Absence Tracker, sickness recording and reporting was a labour intensive process prone to user error and did not provide managers with quick access and visibility of their own Department/teams’ absence statistics.

The issues were summarised as follows:

• It was a labour intensive process for HR to know who was off and for how long.
• It was difficult to monitor if absences were being handled in line with the Absence Policy.
• Payroll department was often not informed when employees were off – leading to payments being made for unauthorised absence.
• Return to work interviews were not always being carried out and for those that were there was nowhere to record the detail within an employees absence record.
• Senior management had no visibility of absence statistics until HR provided information on a monthly basis.
• Valuable HR time and effort was wasted collecting and collating the organisation’s absence data.

The Solution

Team Solutionz Ltd spent considerable time with Omagh District Council HR department detailing and documenting the new absence policy. This included identifying who would enter absence data, who would oversee the process and what reporting was required on the captured data.

With this information, Team Solutionz designed and implemented a fully customised absence system which gave assurance that Line Managers were consistently applying the Absence Policy.

As per the policy, managers would enter new absence information and have visibility of their staff absence performances. The system enables HR to maintain a monitoring role on a daily basis prompting action from managers when the integrated e-mail notifications advised.

Managers are also reminded after absentees return to work that “return to work interviews” are required. All details of the interview are recorded in the Absence Tracker for future reference. This has been highlighted by the NI Auditors Office as a powerful tool for managing both long and short term absences.

The Result

Absence Tracker has automated the absence process and, in line with the NI Auditor’s Office recommendations, now empowers managers to enter and monitor all absence information relating to their department. This re-allocation of workload enables the HR department to more closely monitor ongoing absences and intervene at any point necessary giving a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to absence management. Today Omagh District Council has full visibility of the absence statistics and the status of each individual absence.

Team Solutionz Ltd are committed to providing tailored process automation software that simplifies current practices and provides up to date and relevant information where required. At Omagh District Council this has noticeably been the case.

Lisburn City Council

The consultants at Team Solutionz are extremely professional and rapidly resolve support issues. They have been quick to adapt the system to our particular needs and have also added new functionality such as postcode lookups and a web interface. – Lesley Kirk, Business Administrative Officer -Lisburn City Council

Team Solutionz has been working with Lisburn City Council since May 2004 to implement a number of systems including Incident Tracking and Job Costing.

Incident Tracking was piloted in May 2004 and went live in December 2004. By August 2005, Lisburn City Council had inputted over 4000 Incident requests.

Previous to this the Council had a paper based system for tracking complaints, comments and requests. The move to the new system has significantly improved efficiency and internal communications which allows the Council to be more responsive to our customers.

Council staff found the system very user friendly and have adapted quickly to the new mode of working with minimal training.

Team Solutionz have recently implemented a new version of the Job Costing system for Lisburn City Council which, as well as being more user friendly, has enabled them to comply with insurance requirements.