Customer Profile
-Industry: Facility Maintenance Services
-Services 6,100 locations across Canada
-30,000 service requests annually
BUSINESS OVERVIEW
For more than 55 years, UNICCO has provided exceptional facilities maintenance services to customers in a diverse range of markets including commercial, industrial, education, government, finance, and retail. The company prides itself on delivering efficient, effective and professional service to its customers, a commitment to excellence that has resulted in an impressive 95% customer retention rate. Through its Canada Lighting division, UNICCO services customers across Canada, performing a comprehensive list of services including repairs, preventive maintenance, re-lamping and retro-fitting of fixtures. With 300 customers encompassing more than 6,100 locations, Canada Lighting is leading the way in providing comprehensive electrical service and repair programs to companies in the Canadian marketplace.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Because customer satisfaction and retention is of vital importance to UNICCO, and therefore to its Canada Lighting unit as well, it was imperative to have a system in place to effectively measure and report the company’s achievements on all aspects of its service level agreements (SLAs) to its customers. Commitment to maintaining a high standard of quality both in its professional services and its relationships with its customers is a core value that drives decision-making at Canada Lighting. To handle its customers’ needs across all provinces, Canada Lighting maintains two operational facilities—one in Montreal and one in Toronto—through which work orders are handled. The two offices receive nearly 100 orders each day, in addition to the 400 preventive maintenance work orders that are automatically generated each month, and are responsible for servicing in excess of 6,000 locations across Canada. The challenge facing Canada Lighting was that with each location using its own set of programs to track work orders and collect data, the process for compiling and organizing data was both time-consuming and inefficient. Looking toward the future and hoping to extend its reach further into the North American lighting marketplace, company executives knew that they needed a solid, more scalable work order tracking and reporting system to provide the infrastructure capable of supporting and enhancing that growth. They found a perfect fit in Corrigo.
"With Corrigo everything we need is easily accessible to everyone via the Web. That has revolutionized how we are able to do business.”
Jack Green, Vice President, Canada Lighting
CORRIGO SOLUTION
With Corrigo’s solution in place, Canada Lighting has a real-time, centralized system for data capture and organization. When a call for repairs is received, work orders are opened in Corrigo and immediately dispatched to Canada Lighting technicians or qualified subcontractors. Once the job is completed, all the information regarding that job, such as materials used, travel time, and repair time is entered directly into Corrigo. All the data regarding job completion is in one web-based location, easily accessible to anyone in either of the Canada Lighting offices. Not only does this allow managers to automatically create sales orders in JD Edwards, Canada Lighting’s ERP system, via a shared web interface, but since the data is available in nearly real-time, the entire process takes significantly less time. As Green observes, “Now, as the work order comes through and enters the system, we’re only handling it once. That is a major improvement from what we had before, where the same piece of paper had to be handled maybe three or four different times, often by multiple people.” This system also helps preserve the integrity and accuracy of the data. Since information is only entered once and is stored in one shared location, there is much less room for human error. Managers relying on the figures to make projections, chart progress or track averages can depend on the data being current and correct. Green confirms, “We can now better identify where we are on our performance goals and share that information with our customers with confidence.”
The ability to access this information quickly and easily and to run reports both for internal use and for customers has revolutionized the company’s business practices. As Green admits, “Where we had reliable information before, it was in several different Excel spreadsheets just for work order response times. So if you wanted to check the data, you had to contact different people and ask to see their reports just to compile the information you needed. It could take two people two hours to accomplish. Now, I can go into Corrigo and run a report in minutes and get that information right back to the customer.” Not only do Canada Lighting managers have the ability to construct specific reports that meet their immediate need for information, but they can also have preconfigured reports generated automatically so that they stay on top of their benchmarks for SLA performance in key areas. This allows for a much more solid understanding of how they have progressed toward their goals, as well as allowing them to provide the comprehensive management solution to their customers. That is a cornerstone of the company’s business model. Observes Jeff Peterson, CIO of UNICCO, “Reporting is the ultimate measure of how our services are being performed. Being able to run reports quickly and easily is key to our communication with our customers and internally in knowing where we stand with our goals.”
The Corrigo platform is also capable of interacting and sharing data with Canada Lighting’s existing systems in other departments, further enhancing the company’s overall efficiency. In particular, Corrigo works in tandem with JD Edwards to automatically generate sales orders based on work orders created in Corrigo, as well as balancing and tracking inventory to ensure the company’s trucks are stocked with the correct materials. Green observes, “A key for us is that we’ve integrated Corrigo into our JD Edwards back office, not only for the inventory management components, but also to drive our payables processing and billing.”
RESULTS
With a centralized, real-time system in place to capture data, maintain the integrity of that data, and easily generate customized reports to track performance metrics, Canada Lighting now has a solution that saves it valuable time and effort and allows it to better serve its clients. No longer are there stacks of paper that need to be handled by several people, or frustrating delays hunting down valuable data. Now what used to take hours can be easily accomplished in minutes. As Green notes, “A key requirement was that the solution be scalable, so that we can grow strategically, whether that be in Canada or throughout North America. By implementing a web-based solution like Corrigo, which gives us one centralized system, easily accessible by everyone within our company, we are able to achieve that.”
As it expands, Canada Lighting also plans to integrate Corrigo’s solution even more into its processes. Its next phase will involve using Corrigo to move to a handheld dispatch and work order completion mechanism, allowing technicians and subcontractors to report on their progress remotely, immediately upon completion of their jobs. Canada Lighting estimates that this next step could eliminate up to 60% of the time currently required to process this data manually. Along with this evolution are plans for real-time inventory control to include tracking subcontractors’ materials, comprehensive warranty processing and further refinements in other aspects of its business that would benefit from the seamless and real-time integration of data that Corrigo provides.
The bottom line for Canada Lighting is that the company has found a total solution in Corrigo—one that allows the introduction of new system enhancements at the optimal pace to grow the company most efficiently and effectively. Concludes Green, “With Corrigo, we are able to work with the development team to customize a solution that fits our actual needs. It is truly what we need to take us to the next level of our business. “
Benefits
-Elimination of redundancy and inefficiencies in data collection
-Automation of reporting to easily evaluate SLA performance metrics
-Increased ability to communicate results to clients quickly and efficiently
-Scalable platform capable of supporting future company growth
“We can better identify where we are on our performance goals and share that information with our customers with confidence.”
Jack Green, Vice President, Canada Lighting
