Wates provides property maintenance services to West Lancashire Borough Council. Works include responsive maintenance, voids, gas works and planned works.
The Council has 6000 properties mainly concentrated in the former new town of Skelmersdale and the two market towns of Ormskirk and Burscough.
Business Need
Wates was looking for a supply chain partner to provide a materials managed service for West Lancashire Borough Council’s repairs and maintenance requirements.
75% of the council’s housing stock is in Skelmersdale. To service this, Wates wanted a cost-effective local solution to help increase operative deliverables and reduce their carbon footprint.
Solution
Travis Perkins Managed Services provided a self-sufficient unmanned store in close proximity to West Lancashire Borough Council’s housing stock. The 40-foot container securely houses 3000 products and is the first of its kind to produce its own green energy through photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine.
The TPgo store is ideal for heavily congested areas where travel times can become a drain on resources, and also rural areas where our nearest branch could be a number of miles away. The solution enables us to provide the products you need where you need them.
The store is secure through its use of mobile technology. A security system at the entrance requires the operative to identify the job, the contract and present their unique fob. Once inside the store, the door closes behind them and the CCTV system runs until they leave.
All the materials inside the store are managed using the latest UHF RFID tracking technology so no manual screening of materials is required.
After the operative has exited and the door has locked, the store completes a stock taking exercise and allocates all the missing stock to the job, the contract and the operative and it then generates automatic stock replenishments for Travis Perkins to fulfil.
“Since August 2020 our first time fix rates have increased by a massive 15%, as well as jobs per day increasing by 0.5. Visibility of our stock movements via the online portal has also
helped us to improve our stock profile to meet the increased demand.As the store is self-sufficient, operatives who work out of hours can access the store 24/7/365. A good example of this is when a disabled resident reported their faulty shower as an emergency repair. Our operative was able to access the store on a Saturday, pick up an electric shower and fit it at the property all within 2 hours of it being reported.
The process gives the operatives more control around job management with less downtime as they do not having to visit merchants and wait. There has been positive feedback fro operatives, and we have seen an increase in staff morale.”
Neil Withers, Contract Manager for Wates Living Space
