Since it went live in early December, Kwik-Fit's third-generation mobile enterprise has already delivered a five per cent increase in efficiency, thanks largely to the performance-enhancing functionality of B2M Solutions' remote device management offering - mprodigy(T). The faster speed in communications enables technicians to deliver an extra half-job per day on top of their normal ten daily customer visits. Kwik-Fit has also cut its communications cost by 75 per cent and, based on these savings alone, will recover the cost of the new mobile technology system in less than 18 months.

The data capture hand held devices and mobile printers supplied by Ryzex use a new application from MMCC to allocate jobs to individual technicians giving them customer contact details plus confirming all parts needed to undertake a job. When a job is completed, customer signatures are captured electronically and then relayed back to Kwik-Fit's central hub. A customer receipt is then printed from the in-cab printer.

"The five per cent improvement in efficiency is significant," says Simon Lucas, Operations Director of Kwik-Fit Fleet, "particularly when you consider the significant efficiencies we had already achieved through two previous mobile technology implementations.  Another major success is the ability to capture customer signatures electronically which has removed the need for follow-up paper work on over 2000 jobs per day."

Simon continues, "To replace the previous mobile system, we needed to ensure the new devices hit the ground running.  We couldn't afford any mistakes and decided to work with mobile experts who could advise us on the very best solutions in the market. Ryzex had already supplied us with devices and repair services to support our previous estate of mobile technology over the last two years. We were confident that they could give us impartial advice and recommend only the very best solutions in the market."

Based on Kwik-Fit's specific requirements, Ryzex proposed Intermec's CN3 hand held devices and mprodigy(T), B2M's remote device management software. The mprodigy(T) solution ensures that Kwik-Fit has full control and visibility of its entire estate of hand held devices. As Kwik-Fit's chosen software application partner, MMCC Consultants developed the application that now runs on the hand held devices as well as the Zebra RW420 mobile printers.

In the past, ten per cent of Kwik-Fit's hand held devices would be returned to head office for repair.  The technician would then revert to manual systems with a 20% drop in efficiency. "With B2M's mprodigy(T) we can now resolve 90 per cent of failures using its remote diagnostics functionality," adds Simon. "Any software issue can be fixed remotely without technicians having to come into the office.  In fact, in the first three weeks of operation, we were able to send out two software updates at the touch of button which has meant an extremely fast and effective implementation."

MMCC's new application takes Kwik-Fit technicians through their daily work schedules. mprodigy(T)'s secure communications system transfers data to and from the mobile device quickly and securely. "The fast communications means technicians no longer need to wait for authorisation on a job and no longer undertake the work in anticipation that an authorisation is imminent."

Kwik-Fit chose to work with MMCC as the company already provided support services for the old mobile system.  Simon says that developing a third-generation system is potentially more risky than doing it for the first time.  "We had to get it right otherwise we could have ended up going backwards," he explains. "MMCC has produced high quality work for us in the past and they've proved to be very reliable and flexible," confirms Simon.

Asked whether the project was a success, Simon is in no doubt.  "I was very confident of a positive outcome as soon as we had chosen Ryzex, MMCC and B2M as our project partners," he says. "The increased efficiencies and cost savings were better than even I expected."