5 New Plumbing Trends You Need To Know
Brisbane City Council has fully committed to the future with its long-term plan, Brisbane Vision 2031. Within this vision is smart city, a strategy that uses technology to better serve the people of Brisbane.
‘Council is getting things done and delivering for you’,
says Lord Mayor of Brisbane City Council Graham Quirk.
The key to Brisbane City Council becoming a smart city was integration. A system where all 7,400 employees managing assets of over $A2.1billion delivering a range of municipal services to a city population of nearly 3 million, come together on one integrated digital platform.
Enter the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. This solution has created a central platform of improved productivity and efficiency across finance, procurement, payroll, assets and human resource management. It has enabled a single piece of information to be entered once and the information is automatically populated to the other relevant areas of the system.
‘One council,’ says Greg Evans, the divisional manager for organisational services. “Whether it’s our asset management guys, our finance people, or our customer service operators, we wanted everyone to be on the same page and operating a single platform.’
Mobiles on the go
The biggest impact can be seen in the field. An application called GEO.e was the front end for field staff members mobile devices. City services in the past involved the field staff travelling back and forth between sites and the council chambers would take days to complete, can now be completed in hours or less.
How does it work? A field staff member with a GEO.e equipped mobile device is advised of the location of his next job. He examines the work site and downloads photos onto his mobile. This information is tied to a council asset that is clearly marked on a map on his mobile. The field staff member, using the historical information about that asset stored in the SAP ERP, makes a decision as to the next step and sends the information to an operational team. The operational team know exactly what the job will entail, and arrive at the location ready with the equipment needed for the job.
Mobiles making light work of administration
Not only is field job information captured but the administration behind this work has been turned into an efficient process, affecting many departments within Brisbane City Council. Field staff can enter any health and safety onsite incidents straight onto their mobiles, they can enter their sick and leave entitlements which are all transmitted to the central ERP system to be downloaded to the relevant department.
Compliance with government regulations has been automated with detailed records for every job completed including supplier payments and payroll information for auditors to access the information quickly.
Future mobility
Where to next? How about a resident empowered app, where residents can photograph and log their concerns for maintenance? With this app, the field technicians can view the residents concern on their GEO.e system and quickly assess and prioritise the work. This will save time and reduce contact centre processing.
Now that’s one smart city!
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