De Watergroep is the largest drinking water company in Flanders. The company delivers water to more than 3.2 million consumers and hundreds of companies to the different regions in Flanders. De Watergroep counts 1.520 employees and manages a network of 34.000 kilometers of water pipelines.
Until recently, technicians of De Watergroep went to the customer with pen and paper. Urgent interventions or unforeseen orders were passed on to the central ERP late. Sometimes too late. This way of working caused quiet some inefficiencies. The technicians had to come to the office every day to deliver their work orders so they could be processed. It was an approach that implied a risk for errors and caused extra workload for the administrative department. Most of all it meant a loss of valuable time that the technicians could not spend on their core tasks: the technical work in the field.
De Watergroep understood that digitizing their mobile employees would quickly deliver positive impact in several areas. By entering the correct data on location by means of a mobile application, the technicians could cancel the unnecessary travel time to the office and avoid manual input of data. That would not only save time, but it would increase the quality of data as well. By immediately making the data accessible, De Watergroep would also get real time insight in status and progress of actual jobs. A solution to fix the basics for quicker and faster service & delivery.
Suivo implemented the solution MoKa at De Watergroep, a digital platform on which the technicians document their complete working process. It allows them to work at any given location without having to pass by the office to process the data. De Watergroep defined 6 different roles, each with their own specific hardware and software – adapted to their work situations.
The employees receive their work orders from the ERP. The app allows them to go through the documentation process as efficiently as possible. E.g. it only shows them the information that is relevant for the specific task at hand. Suivo implemented a total of 114 different types of process flows. This guarantees that time spent on each job is as productive as possible. Only in case of exception they divert from the normal process. The technicians have access to a broad spectrum of extra information through the platform. Via the GIS viewer they get information on the sewage and the pipelines. Next to that the historic overview of the water meters provides insights on earlier interventions or maintenance tasks. The technician can also receive messages on its mobile device, e.g. urgent additional information.
Done with copying all kinds of information and other unnecessary jobs, De Watergroep found a partner in Suivo to build and implement a digital platform. Suivo has a strong focus on usability, which was a crucial factor for the MoKa-project, next to reliability and use of modern technology.
A user friendly design was critical to guarantee user adoption across the ranging group of technicians. The application is completely custom made, tailored to the needs and processes of De Watergroep.
The roll-out of Moka is ongoing at De Watergroep. The most important goal is that De Watergroep has to be able to achieve significant savings in time with its technicians. The first results show that quality of the data has already improved.
The immediate availability of data accelerates the entire operating process. The digital platform allows for providing an automatically generated quote for the customer before the start of the task. When the technician finishes the job, he asks the customer to digitally sign the work order. That way De Watergroep offers maximum transparency to the customer. Because of the data being accessible anywhere, De Watergroep can deliver the invoice much quicker than before, so cash-to-cash cycle is shorter as well. Expense notes processing is accelerated in the same way.
The technicians have access to information at all times, for infrastructure as well as for customer data. Not only this increases the productivity of the mobile teams, but it also has a positive impact on the customer satisfaction. Next to that De Watergroep holds an overview on the status and the progress of the different tasks at hand. Thanks to the availability of correct data, De Watergroep can now use the reports to further optimize their processes.
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