Repairs & Maintenance System
Do you have difficulties tracking statutory certification? Is you repairs processes manually intensive process? Are you overwhelmed by calls and emails from property managers, contractors and operations about jobs? If so, we can help.
About Greene King
Greene King is a leading pub retailer and brewer, based in Bury St Edmunds, who combines traditional ale brands with an estate of over 1,900 pubs (set to increase dramatically with the acquisition of Spirit Pub Company).
Within their pub estate, Greene King operate both managed and leased houses, with a diverse range of household brands such as Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale, Loch Fyne, Old English Inns and Hungry Horse.
Repairs & Maintenance Challenges
Managing repairs and maintenance across 1,900 properties was a complex problem for Greene King. Specific issues included:
- Separate Help Desks for each brand, using different systems and processes.
- Repair spend and budgets were extremely difficult to track and control.
- Statutory Certification and Maintenance took significant manual effort to manage.
- There were no standard Contractors or rates across the estate, and no mechanism for measuring Contractor KPI’s.
- The key stakeholders (Help Desk, Pub Managers, Property, Sales and Contractors) all communicated using ad-hoc calls and emails.
- Integration with their Enterprise finance system was complex and manually intensive.
Solid Foundations
In 2010, Greene King instigated a project to address these challenges, primarily to consolidate their various Help Desks and systems.
After investigating the market, Greene King were unable to find an ‘off the shelf’ package that would handle their unique requirements. Greene King had already worked with SAM7 on a number of complex projects, and so had confidence in SAM7’s ability to quickly understand business concepts, innovate and deliver.
Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, web portals and phone App, SAM7 were able to implement a tailored solution that managed all reactive repairs, quoted work, planned maintenance and statutory compliance. The system is also being extended to cater for Capital Expenditure (Capex) projects.
Real-time integration with Greene King’s finance system meant that purchase order and invoice information could be passed seamlessly between the two systems.
Clear Return on Investment
Since its launch the system has delivered some real savings:
- Allowed the different ‘brand’ Help Desks to be combined into a single focused team, using a common system and set of processes.
- Significantly improved the first time fix rate by ensuring that the right Contractors are sent to repairs with the correct information.
- Allowed Greene King to negotiate preferential rates with contractors by using their full buying power.
- Provided a secure and reliable repository for all statutory certification and documentation, which is quick to search.
- Prevented maintenance and statutory tests from being missed.
- Stopped Greene King paying for work that should be covered by warranty.
Joining Up The Dots
One of the biggest wins from the system has been the drastic reduction of ad-hoc communications between all interested parties. Calls and emails are both down 95%.
By creating a single system, all teams within process now have access to consistent and accurate information.
Using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM user interface the Help Desk have a single, concise picture of all work being undertaken.
Pub Managers can now log into a Web Portal to view information about open orders, chase outstanding authorisations, grade repairs or download statutory certification. Or even download manuals.
The same secure Web Portal allows external contractors to interact with the new processes – accepting work, providing quotations, requesting uplifts, completing jobs, flagging follow on works and uploading new statutory certification.
Right Information, Right Time
Working closely with Greene King’s business team, SAM7 created a custom Android phone App, individually tailored to exactly fit how Greene King’s field based people wanted to work. Users wanted the intuitive experience that they have come to expect from Apps they download at home.
SAM7 delivered a bespoke App that:
- Provided an elegant user experience for quickly accessing relevant and up to date pub information.
- Enabled users to select repair quotes, approve minor repairs and authorise overspends using the App.
- Displayed accurate budget spend information.
- Included the ability to view pubs on a map, get a street view and access photos.
- Allowed seamless off-line access via automated background synchronisation.
- Securely accessed Microsoft Dynamics CRM data.
Building Business Intelligence
Quickly extracting meaningful metrics and information out of systems is vital. Whenever we speak to Greene King they always stress how easy they find to extract meaningful information from the system.
Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s powerful toolkit Greene King were able to build a suite of reports and perform detailed analysis of previously unrecorded information. This included:
- Targeted Dashboards for Help Desk users highlighting business critical issues.
- Reports summarising the state of maintenance and statutory tests, across the estate.
- Standardised Contractor scorecards to measure performance against KPI’s.
- Flagging work that has been placed on hold or is waiting for a response from a third party.