Fast Lean Smart's Automated Scheduling Speeds Digital Transformation At Top Social Housing Maintenance Firm

Renowned property maintenance provider Axis Europe is in the throes of a digital transformation. At the heart of that transformation is new scheduling and route optimisation software from Fast Lean Smart (FLS), set to bring all-new levels of productivity and customer engagement to Axis’ service operation in conjunction with Dynamics 365.

Established in 1986, Axis utilise 500 field operatives to provide strategic repair, maintenance and improvement services for premier UK building owners across all property sectors, including social housing, schools, commercial offices and heritage properties. Its work, partnerships and interactions are shaped by a set of core values that make it “big enough to deliver, small enough to care” as per its strapline.

A strong commitment to providing top-quality service to customers in an increasingly service driven and complex landscape is what heralded Axis’ decision to digitally transform. The company currently uses multiple service management solutions and a scheduling system dominated by manual intervention, which it sought to integrate and streamline. FLS has now become central to that process.

“We needed a user-friendly scheduling system that could really increase the productivity of our field operatives whilst reducing travel and back office admin costs,” says Russell Measor, Head of Data and Delivery at Axis. “We also needed a system that could integrate well with Microsoft Dynamics 365, which we are implementing as our new CRM platform. With that in mind, our Dynamics implementation partner recommended two software providers — FLS was one of them.”

Axis evaluated the two providers and FLS’s real-time scheduler and route optimiser, FLS VISITOUR, came out on top for several reasons. Russell explains, “The main reason we chose FLS was the speed and high performance of VISITOUR and the fact that we can tweak its algorithms to fit our needs. With speed profiles and real-time traffic data, VISITOUR can plan routes in ways that are most efficient and most productive for our operatives. And real-time tracking is going to increase our engagement with customers and reduce our no-access rates. It will enable us to provide them with operatives’ exact, up-to-the-minute locations, making them less likely to pop out when an operative is round the corner.”

One of the ways that FLS approaches a sale is by proving its performance capabilities with customised scheduling tests, which many other providers don’t offer. Russell says, “We were blown away by the results of the scheduling tests. Rescheduling our appointments using VISITOUR demonstrated a significant reduction in mileage and driving hours. More importantly it showed that with VISITOUR our engineers can achieve one or more additional jobs per day.”

Although these figures were powerfully persuasive on their own, the ultimate reason Axis decided to invest in FLS VISITOUR was a much simpler, more human one. “We thought that the team at FLS were more down-to-earth than other providers,” says Russell. “They were less salesy and gave us a more tailored service. We didn’t just feel like another sale. We felt that they actually cared about our business.”

Axis is hoping for great things once FLS VISITOUR has been implemented. Russell explains the overall benefits that his teams are looking forward to: “A business with complex planning and in-day scheduling challenges like Axis needs to react in real time and FLS will let us do this. In doing so, we will provide a faster response and better service to our customers. We’re particularly looking forward to the increased productivity, increased assurance as to our ability to meet SLAs, and lower back office costs thanks to greater levels of automation.”

About Fast Lean Smart (FLS)
Fast Lean Smart (FLS) was established in 1992 to develop smart software for automating logistics and field work planning in real time. Its founders designed the Power Opt algorithm which is at the heart of the FLS VISITOUR solution and has the ability to deliver precise results based on countless variables in less than a second. FLS is headquartered in Germany, with UK offices near Reading and Warrington. For more information, visit https://www.fastleansmart.com/en/.

Axis Europe specialise in the improvement and maintenance of Housing, Heritage, Education, Public and Commercial properties. Our disciplines are tailored to the requirements of each sector but our values remain the same.

Although Axis has experienced continual growth since its establishment in 1986, we're not aiming to be the biggest service provider - we do, however, intend to be the best. We believe our success is a direct result of developing relationships that are mutually beneficial. We are a values-led company with eight founding principles. Anyone who comes into contact with us, at any level, will be treated according to these values.