Amalgamated Lifts embrace technology to enhance service levels and improve efficiency

Discussion with John Brand, Finance Director for Amalgamated Lifts about the new mobile employee management solution he has implemented and its benefits.

Amalgamated Lifts founded in 1988, have been providing Lift Maintenance, Repairs, Modernisation and Installation services throughout London and the Southeast for the past 25 years.  Independently owned they have established long lasting relationships with a number of clients within the Private, Commercial, Public, Housing and Facility Management Sectors.

Their strongly skilled workforce of which 40% have been with the company for more than 10 years are dedicated to customer satisfaction; providing full, open and honest communication, solutions and quick, real time report information. The company had been using a somewhat dated vehicle telematics system.  This system required the installation of expensive hardware and did not have the ability to monitor engineers once out of their vehicles.

So Amalgamated Lifts recently evaluated their telematic systems and upgraded to Romex’s Mobile Employee Management solution.

John Brand, Finance Director for Amalgamated Lifts said: “We have to have a monitoring system in place as it is imperative that we know where all our engineers are at all times.  Given the nature of our industry it is vital to monitor staff for Health and Safety compliance. It’s a dangerous profession working in lift shafts and we need to know if, for example, a person hasn’t moved location for an hour. With our previous system whilst we knew they were on site, once they left their vehicle they were not traceable.  My initial concerns were that I would lose some of the information that I was receiving from my old system, for example, driver behaviour.  In fact, I now have all this and more and the transition was really smooth.”

Romex’s Mobile Employee Management solution is web based software app run via a smart phone that monitors an employee’s movements.  Given that their mobile phone will always be on a person, it can record where that member of staff is at any given time.  The software is able to locate the best placed person for a job whether they are in vehicle, on foot or using public transport, giving management total visibility.

John continued: “It gives our customers a peace of mind to know where a member of our staff is at all times with the ability to identify who they are, monitor their location and how long the job takes.  The ability to validate the time spent on site by our engineers is a great benefit to our customers, we weren’t able to do this with our previous system.”

Amalgamated Lifts routinely upgrade 50 lifts, maintain approx. 2000 lifts and complete a number of major modernisation projects each year. They work with all types of lift equipment and technology within a variety of builds.  Since using the Romex solution, Amalgamated Lifts have begun to appreciate the benefits.  John said: “We receive emergency call outs, when people are trapped insides lifts, sometimes in a panic. We need to be able to get the nearest engineer to that site in the shortest time possible. With this system we know exactly where our engineers are specifically located and this in turn helps reduce our reaction times during emergencies.”

As Finance Director for the company, John is interested in bottom line savings: “We are monitoring the system, and are confident we will see savings due to time efficiencies afforded by these solutions.  Our engineers are guided to take the most efficient routes, saving both fuel and time.  By allocating the nearest engineer to a job, we are able to increase productivity.  The reporting system is already saving us time, with Romex emailing us the information, our admin staff are finding the detail is easily analysed.”

Amalgamated Lifts operate a green policy, using hybrid vehicles and working to reduce their carbon footprint, so by reducing travelling times this adheres to their policy. Run on a Smart phone, the Romex Mobile Employee Management solution means that there isn’t any hardware to install, so no additional cost with new vehicles or employees.

“This system has enabled our company to give our clients the best service, comply with all our Health & Safety regulations and ensure that our staff are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities.  Due to the nature of our industry we are very conscious of Health & Safety and the fact that we have lone workers in unusual situations.   This system alerts us when an engineer has been untraceable for a certain amount of time and is able to pin point their last position, which has never been available to us previously.”

The Romex’s Mobile Employee Management solution has a number of other features including driver distraction prevention (DDP) module that Amalgamated Lifts may be introducing shortly.  The DDP application is able to cut-off and blocks all voice calls and locks the keypad to prevent any texting (or emailing) after the start of a business journey.   There is also a job scheduling module they are interested in working with.

In conclusion, John says: “It is a competitive marketplace and we want to make sure that we are at the top of our game, it is important to keep up to date with technology and use the most innovative systems available.  This way we are confident we will continue to offer the best service for the next 25 years and beyond.”

For further information on Amalgamated Lifts please visit www.al-lifts.co.uk

For further information on Romex World www.romexworld.com