Citywide: WennSoft’s Solutions Rise to the Top Down Under
"Our WennSoft solutions are a point of differentiation for us. We can demonstrate to clients that we have superior information-based tools to meet their specific needs. That’s huge for us."
Michael Crask
IT Manager, Citywide
The Challenge
Citywide was founded in 1995 on a vision to “be Australia’s leader in the provision of sustainable open space, environmental and infrastructure services…through the development of our people, application of technology and industry best performance.” As the sixth largest nation, and with about 70 percent of its more than 20 million people living in its 10 largest cities, achieving that vision is no small task.
As related to applying technology toward its vision, Citywide implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP in the late ’90s. While the solution met Australia’s GST (Goods and Services Tax) requirements that were introduced in 2000, it didn’t meet Citywide’s needs for very specific invoicing based on customers’ contracted service agreements and billing cycles. Additionally, the solution didn’t address Citywide’s complex scheduling requirements.
Citywide wanted to keep Microsoft Dynamics GP as its business management solution backbone. What it didn’t want was an additional solution that required multiple modifications.
“Our criteria were simple yet complex,” says Michael Crask, who has served as Citywide’s IT manager since the company’s inception. “We wanted a solution fully integrated out-of-thebox, with little to no modifications required.”
Citywide found what it was looking for in Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner WennSoft. “They were huge as far as meeting our requirements; they stood in front of everyone else,” says Crask.
The Solution
Citywide’s comprehensive WennSoft solution includes Equipment Management Series, Job Cost and Service Management Series. As related to service management, most solutions, notes Crask, deal with static objects and equipment. “We deal with living and breathing things like grass,” he says, “which actually shifts the whole paradigm.”
For example, Citywide may have a contract that requires a certain section of grass within a park to be mowed about every two weeks to keep the grass within a specific height range. “And then the growing season hits,” says Crask, “and we need to adjust our schedule from two weeks to 10 days.” With contracts representing more than 200 hectares (or nearly 500 acres) of open spaces spread across nearly 900 sites, a nimble, robust service management solution is a must.
The powerful solution has also proved to be priceless as related to Citywide’s parking meter maintenance contracts. Entirely automated on service technicians’ PDAs, the solution enables seamless repair service to some 4,000 meters that require 300 to 500 service calls a day, seven days a week. With penalties enforced against Citywide if two to four-hour service turnaround times aren’t met, Service Management Series is, in Crask’s words, “huge.”
Also huge for Citywide is its equipment fleet, which includes everything from simple lawn mowers to complex street sweepers. “We need to know who has what piece of equipment where, and we need to know the cost associated with it,” says Crask. WennSoft’s Equipment Management Series enables Citywide to tracks costs and financial details, summarize key data such as service expenses, and schedule equipment for maintenance. “With the volatile cost of fuel, monitoring its use is very important to us,” says Crask. “If we can narrow our fuel use by even five percent, well, the savings are extremely significant.”
As for job cost functionality, Citywide actually started with a different solution. However, integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP was proving to be quite painful, and support for the solution seemed to be fading away. Job Cost from WennSoft proved to be what Citywide needed. “Within our civil infrastructure division, many of the jobs can be quite sizable,” says Crask. “We needed a solution that could handle and control such jobs to maintain our profit margin.”
The Benefits
WennSoft solutions have enabled Citywide to meet customers’ greatly varying requirements, gain efficiencies and increase the company’s credibility.
Meeting Vast Requirements
With more than 500 jobs at any given time, a one-size-fits-all solution simply won’t work for Citywide. With WennSoft solutions, Citywide can meet the individual scheduling and billing requirements of its customers. Additionally, schedules can be modified based on environmental factors such as the country’s growing season.
Gaining Efficiencies
Prior to implementing WennSoft solutions, Citywide scheduled and tracked the majority of its jobs via Microsoft Office Access® and Microsoft Office Excel®. “As one might imagine,” says Crask, “that proved to be problematic on occasion. It was a mess.” With tight integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP, double-entry of data has been eliminated, as have reams and reams of paper. The efficiencies gained through WennSoft’s scheduling functionality are “nearly impossible to measure” says Crask.
Increasing Credibility
For an increasing number of its customers, supplying pertinent data is a contract compliance issue. For example, before a parking violation can be issued, the parking meter needs to be deemed inoperable. Without detailed service information from Citywide, the violation can’t be issued, causing Citywide’s customer lost revenue. Crask says that many recent contracts require Citywide to supply data within 24 hours of a service event occurring. “The days of monthly reports are certainly beginning to fade,” he says.