Yorkshire Water get their Mobile Workforce connected using Apollo from Brand.

In early 1999, Yorkshire Water embarked on a change programme that would cost £ millions and which would result in a more efficient dynamic organisation capable of meeting new business goals.

One of their biggest assets – and biggest costs – was the mobile workforce of 600+ engineers.

One of the key elements of the change programme was to improve the way those engineers were scheduled and communicated with, and real-time data was seen as fundamental to that goal.

So Yorkshire Water selected MDSI, the Vancouver-based suppliers of work management solutions.

MDSI’s business was historically across packet networks in North America, rather than GSM.

So that’s where Brand was brought in to help; our resilient GSM connectivity solution was proposed to sit underneath MDSI’s application stack; MDSI’s proven workforce management software and Brand’s proven GSM connectivity suited Yorkshire Water’s needs perfectly.

However when Yorkshire Water analysed the benefits of Apollo, they saw opportunities for other areas, particularly because of Apollo’s simple client software and spoofing to reduce bills. So they made the decision to roll it out to all remote workers, not just the mobile staff.

In total over 1000 staff have got, or will get, access via Apollo. Clearly the biggest benefits are for the mobile engineers where the cost savings are greatest and where the need to extend MDSI out to the field will pay dividends in terms of efficiency gains, but Yorkshire Water’s goal of a single access platform for all isolated workers has been achieved.

One of the key advantages of Apollo was network independence. Because Apollo can be used on any GSM network Yorkshire Water was able to go out to open tender, and has successfully switched from Vodafone to Orange.

All of the architecture is now in place, and the mobile element will shortly (June 2000) commence its rollout, using Panasonic Toughbooks and integral GSM modules, NT, MDSI’s Advantex software and Apollo. And of course the engineers can use any other application too, including email, intranet and file transfer.

This is actually one of several joint projects between Brand and MDSI, including workforce management systems for all of Belgacom’s telephone engineers (across Belgium), Telenor’s engineers (Norway), and a large Dutch utility.