For more than 25 years Michael Rosen’s charming story “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” has captured the imaginations of millions, transporting readers on an adventure to “catch a big one” while overcoming a series of challenges along the way.

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Procure Plus has helped boost the energy efficiency of almost 900 homes across the North West, by forging a partnership between South Liverpool Homes and property development and construction training company, Top Notch Contractors.

South Liverpool Homes approached Procure Plus looking for support on its photovoltaics (PV) scheme that aimed to meet the housing provider’s carbon reduction objectives. However, soon into the project, the Government announced changes to the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT), which would see funding for PV schemes decrease by up to 64 per cent from February 2016. This meant that the installation and registration of solar PV systems across South Liverpool Homes’ housing stock would need to be completed within a year.

The project was put out to tender as a lot on Procure Plus’ planned maintenance Installation Framework, with Top Notch Contractors appointed in July 2015, and Solarking UK named as preferred suppliers. The scheme started in September 2015 was originally planned for completion by September 2016, yet in light of the looming decrease in funding rates, the timescales were brought forward by ten months.

“Social landlords invest in PV to ensure their tenants benefit from electricity bill reductions. However, they rely on a robust level of FIT funding to deliver these schemes,” said Jackie Roach, operations manager at Procure Plus. “With this in mind, it was vital we helped South Liverpool Homes to deliver the projects quickly before funding was reduced.”

To accelerate the project, Procure Plus provided additional support to the partnership by creating an intensive yet realistic installation programme. This included daily monitoring and timed targets to manage the additional materials and equipment required in the tight timescales.
The end result was 898 solar PV installations completed and registered before the deadline and all within South Liverpool Homes’ budget.

“The PV scheme should have taken at least six months to complete, but the proposed changes to the FIT funding meant that this was just not possible,” explained Andrew Roberts, operations manager at Top Notch Contractors. “There was a big risk that we wouldn’t be able to source the solar panels and the tools required for the project, but Procure Plus had the technical experience and longstanding relationships with Solarking UK to ensure everything arrived in time.”

Concluding, Gareth Rigby, head of assets at South Liverpool Homes, went on to explain: “The changes put a lot of pressure on the project, but this is a great example of how strategic partnerships between organisations can really deliver and add value within communities.

“Our tenants can now benefit from living in more energy efficient homes and all the cost saving that brings, and we’ve been able to help dramatically reduce the carbon emissions within our neighbourhoods.”

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The cleanliness of any healthcare facility is paramount. A change in official regulations last year provided a vital source of verification for facilities managers (FMs) as well as an ideal opportunity to make sure a facility is meeting the new guidelines. Nigel Crunden looks at the impact of the change

Read more on NEW BSi HEALTHCARE CLEANING STANDARD – ONE YEAR ON…

Mark Raeburn’s viewpoint on children and family services from Capita One.

One of the real highlights of my job is visiting local authorities and finding out how the successful early help initiatives they have put in place are improving the lives of children and families.

I have heard about many innovative schemes designed to give children the best possible start in life – from improving access to ante-natal support for teen parents to encouraging more young families to take up their entitlement to free child care.

Early help programmes can provide a life line for young families and give vulnerable children the chance of a brighter future.

A better start in life

A few visits from a specialist outreach worker based in a local authority’s teen parenthood unit might be all that is needed to help an anxious young mother prepare for giving birth, and improve the chances that she keeps her and her baby healthy and stays in education. With the right help, she could find work and gain some key parenting skills that her child – and any future children – will benefit from for many years to come.

But effective early intervention can reap rewards at any stage of life – from birth, through education and working life and into old age. The challenge for local authorities is knowing who needs help, and what help they need.

Turning data into knowledge

Read more on WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME TO DELIVER EARLY HELP TO CHILDREN?…

In this article James Cameron explains the latest developments in field service management organisations.

Field service organisations are continually looking to foster greater productivity, visibility and efficiency in order to meet the demands of their customers and leapfrog the competition. Aberdeen Group recently found competition in product and service to be the leading challenge for field service organisations. To address this, transitioning from manual to automated processes and using one platform to streamline the entire field service workflow is key.
Indeed, aligning back office systems with workforce management, telematics solutions and mobile devices, allows for quick access and easy data sharing from one step of the process to the next, seamlessly, across the entire business. The result is greater consistency, faster response times and a better customer experience.

The Big Data Challenge

Read more on FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT: TRANSITIONING FROM MANUAL TO AUTOMATED PROCESSES…

Jeremy Porteus, Director of the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN), addresses some of the more frequently asked questions regarded telecare in relation to funding, housing strategy and infrastructure.

I started the Housing LIN with a belief that when great people come together and share ideas, inspirational things happen. What has become apparent over the last few years is that person-centric, connected care – while widely regarded as the future of healthcare – remains a mystery to many.

Read more on REVOLUTIONISING HOUSING CARE WITH LIFE ENHANCING TECHNOLOGIES…

The challenges of aggregating reliable data and analysing it effectively to drive field service excellence can be made easier if all field service systems are integrated seamlessly across one platform, automating the field service workflow. Indeed, the more a system communicates throughout the process, the more tailored an experience that can be provided to the end customer.

If a field service organization has an end-to-end suite of back office, telematics and workforce management solutions, integrating these with technician’s mobile devices out in the field will offer innumerable benefits. Automated workflows help to avoid the unnecessary task of having to manually enter the same information, multiple times, into different systems and duplicating work. Field service organisations then have complete control over what information is gathered, in a reliable format and this minimises human intervention and touch points, increasing the reliability and consistency of information further. What’s more, by allowing this information to flow freely through the different systems, the entire organisation has complete visibility of the data received, allowing individual departments to access and analyse what data they need to do their jobs which they can then use to base strategic decisions on.

The journey to automated field service

Once an organisation understands the manual processes it’s using and why they do things a certain way, it can start to re-evaluate how to do those processes in an automated system, with fewer touch points and more immediate responses. The journey to automation starts in the back office, with a single, common, integrated system that manages customers, calls, service contracts, estimates and work orders along with assets, inventory and billing, all from one place.

Information stored in the back office can be pushed out to workforce management systems, tool and inventory databases and scheduling engines to allocate shifts, tasks and appointments intelligently. Integrating these systems with CRM applications is also important so that businesses can look to prioritise customers, ensure that a technician arrives on-site at a time that is convenient to the customer and that service level agreements are met.

For technicians that are on their way to visit a customer, the type of information that is stored in the back office is extremely valuable and having on-demand access to it is critical to their success. Being able to pull up work orders, warranty, parts inventory, service contract information and customer data via a smartphone or tablet enables them to complete jobs on-time, first-time round, resulting in lower operational costs and higher customer satisfaction. What’s more, having access to historical customer data empowers them to make valuable service recommendations. Customers feel as though they are getting a personal service and view the field worker as a proactive, valuable partner.

Visa versa, technicians also need to share information with back office and workforce management systems, such as issuing a new service ticket to be scheduled, updating customer records and their at-work hours, which can then be sent directly to the HR system to be documented if this is integrated too. Faster billing can also be achieved if technicians have the ability to complete work orders, have customers sign off on their mobile devices, and are able to bill the customer onsite for same-day billing and faster turnaround. No more losing paper billing forms or miscalculating due to illegible handwriting.

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Gareth Richards explains how youth services teams across Southend-on-Sea Borough Council are reaping the benefits of an information sharing initiative designed to help them better support young people in the area.

Read more on MORE INFORMATION = IMPROVED OUTCOMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN SOUTHEND…

LOOKING BACK AT INFRASTRUCTURE CONTROL SYSTEM SECURITY IN 2015

Cyber attacks on infrastructure controls systems have increased in 2015. The motivation can include the valuable intellectual property of the organization. In this feature Deborah Galea examines the growing threat and suggests counter measures.

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The transformation of field service organisations seen in 2015 is set to continue in 2016. In this feature John Cameron highlights the trends that will drive the transformation

Field service organisations have reached an unprecedented transformative stage, as an array of advanced tools continue to storm the market helping businesses to transform the way that they operate. Last year saw the expansion of the Internet of Things and the widespread introduction of advanced analytics tools to tackle Big Data. These trends will continue into 2016 along with the need for greater integration. Furthermore, with technology development moving so quickly and organisations continually having to modernise their solutions to keep up with the competition, 2016 will see an increase in businesses entrusting one provider to deliver all the functionality and modularity they require to manage their work, workers and assets out in the field.

Read more on SIX TRENDS THAT WILL IMPACT FIELD SERVICE IN 2016…