FACILITY SERVICES

Company
Founded in 2007, the company is a provider of a broad range of world-class hard and soft facility management services. These include planned preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, corrective maintenance, and waste management, along with landscape, hygiene, cleaning, and security services.

Additionally, the company also offers integrated solutions and solutions such as asset planning, design, construction, and project management to clients across large-scale communities, commercial, and residential units.

Challenge
As the company’s operation continued to grow and expand, some operational challenges became glaringly apparent and were in need of speedy resolution.

The issues they faced were on two fronts: collecting a large volume of meter readings often inaccurately, and two, a substantial increase in complaints related to cleaning and security services. Both challenges were having a deeply negative impact on service quality effectiveness, visibly threatening the reputation of the long-established business.

Naturally, as the business expanded, there was an increase in the number of meter readings to be taken, which was in the ballpark of 300 readings per day. However, neither the existing process nor the team size was conducive to the volume of data that was to be collected – accurately. There was a large number of errors due to the exceedingly manual setup, and needless to say, generating meaningful reports was painstakingly tedious, thus leading to longer reporting cycles.

The latter issue of escalations with regards to cleaning and security services was mainly to do with ineffective and nonadherent staff. This took the form of staff nonadherence to job cards, site walkthroughs, patrolling duties, etc. Cleaners and security were also found to be leaving the assigned locations to take unsanctioned breaks nearby on several occasions. Staff morale was low – this needed to be remedied.

Solution
The company began the journey of solving these issues through an up-close, in-depth, and detailed examination of the two issues in the context of the site requirements, with the close involvement of the direct team members. It was evident that performing manual meter readings was not sustainable nor scalable and therefore, turning to technology to automate this function was the way forward. Additionally, it was apparent that the root cause of the lack of staff adherence was not having a comprehensive task or duty management system in place. Ad hoc and employee motivation did not go hand in hand.

This is where the work of Arrow Labs began.

According to the Account Manager of the company, “Of all the vendors who were vetted, Arrow Labs product MIMS stood out the most due to its product fit and ease of usability across user levels. Thereon, the Arrow Labs team moved quickly – they took the initiative to follow up with a site visit to gather necessary information for setting up and activation of the required modules. Once the necessary approvals were obtained, the MIMS Watches were delivered on-site immediately, with the required data / SIM cards arranged voluntarily. We had no time to waste, and Arrow Labs diligently accommodated this need of ours.”

The company’s requisite modules of Asset, Task, Duty, and Location were activated, with the maintenance staff’s job schedules set up on the portal as per site requirements. Over the span of a few days, the respective individuals were provided the necessary site-level training, while preparing the system admins to handle scheduling, work orders, reports, and such.

This marked the final step before the reins were handed over to their newly digitalized team.

Results
Upon deploying MIMS, the challenge faced with meter readings was eliminated instantly. Upon receiving the task, the technician was able to simply scan the barcode of the asset on his phone or watch and input the data into the system, along with a photo if requested by his supervisor. This allowed for a double verification wherein, on the off chance that the wrong asset was scanned, the photo requirement would expose this error, thus ensuring no wrong information was carried forward.

Accuracy and ease were particularly valuable to the company’s lean team of technicians due to their sheer per-day volume of meter readings across multiple assets. Furthermore, along with meter readings, supervisors were also able to add other items to the task checklists, ensuring increased effectiveness and technician utilization while on the job.

The issue of staff nonadherence was also quickly resolved by assigning location-based task allocation, which guaranteed that the task was executed at the expected location. Once the cleaner or security guard marked himself as “on duty”, the MIMS Watch provided location information to his supervisor, thus allowing him to assign and direct him to additional tasks in the area. Furthermore, supervisors readily had access to data on time taken on a particular job, or in a specific site, allowing them to schedule work thoughtfully and ensure they get the breaks they need.

The Account Manager added, “Access to regular training via the MIMS videos and tutorials with walkthroughs of common scenarios, helped with not only keeping staff up to date but ensuring they were at ease with using the system. I can also say that MIMS has boosted morale amongst our team members due to the increased transparency and subsequent accountability it has mustered. With MIMS, we’re able to see and reward good work, and as a result, our people are happier and better motivated.”

With the increased transparency that is available to the company, their team is now thinking far beyond the realm of day-to-day operations, improved business operations, or customer satisfaction. Their management team has been able to focus on their long-term vision of continuous enhancement of the quality of their facility management services while setting the bar high for the industry as a whole.