Member Article

App helps cut carbon for Pacifica Group

A North East development firm has helped one of its longest-serving clients implement a new technology solution that will benefit the environment and the productivity of its nationwide team of engineers.

Stockton-based Sapere created a bespoke web application for support services organisation Pacifica Group to help it streamline its work on a national scheme to reduce carbon emissions and reduce fuel poverty.

Pacifica, whose work centres around the electrical appliance and domestic heating markets, is supporting energy suppliers to install more eco-friendly options in qualifying homes as part of the Government’s Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme. But now the process is even more efficient after the six-figure project delivered by Sapere.

The new task management software, which includes a mobile app to allow surveyors and installers to record jobs while carrying out work in customers’ homes, has so far received a near 100 per cent accuracy rate according to Pacifica’s customer satisfaction tests.

Paul Drake, Operations Director of Sapere, whose other clients include Invista, part of Koch Industries, Absolute Antibody’s and Hisense explained: “The processing of jobs for this particular workstream was manual with little automation. Many reports became out of date quickly due to the time it took to produce them.

“The solution we developed enables all tasks in the process to be managed in one place, from the initial customer enquiry right through to payment and aftercare, with real-time reports as well as surveys and install checks completed in-between on a mobile application.

“Automatic emails and text messages are sent from the system to keep in touch with customers, and there are logic driven workflow steps so the status of a job can be tracked at the click of a button.

“All of this has removed the need for engineers to revisit jobs because of missed or inaccurate data. Not only does this reduce the need for additional travel and its associated environmental impact, but the team can now turn more jobs around each day, with customers better informed of progress.”

Kevin Brown, Chief Executive at Pacifica Group said: “It’s great to work with a friendly, skilled, knowledgeable team of software experts that produce easy-to-use solutions, which have multiple benefits to our business in terms of productivity and our commitment to the low carbon economy.

“We’ve been working with Sapere for a long time now, having first come across the team in 2013, and they truly understand our commercial goals as well as our focus on delivering business improvement initiatives that support the environment.”

Sapere continues to support Pacifica’s in-house developers and is currently working on further enhancements to the system installed, as well as using it as a framework for a new solution that will use automation to add real value to another area of the business.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Harvey & Hugo .