Interface

Spring 2022 45 www.hae.org.uk www.eha.org.uk Stoke-on-Trent City Council is celebrating a major milestone in its mission to fix potholes quickly and permanently – after completing almost three years of repairs in just over four months with a newmachine. The authority repaired 10,000m² of road in just 130 days – an area equivalent to eight Olympic-sized swimming pools. Using traditional methods, this task would have taken 1,040 days or almost three years. The council became the first in the UK to invest in JCB’s PotholePro last year, having trialled the technology in the months before. Other authorities across the UK are now following suit and investing in the machine. The milestone 10,000th square metre of road has just been fixed in Finch Place, Brindley Ford, Stoke-on-Trent by the city council’s highways team. Councillor Daniel Jellyman, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Regeneration and Heritage, said: “To have competed almost three years of work in just over four months is astounding and speaks volumes for this solution over traditional methods. It’s proving so effective across the city that councillors and residents are actively asking for the PotholePro when a highway network issue arises.” The development of the machine has been personally led by JCB Chairman Lord Bamford. He said: “Potholes really are a blight on our nation and the solution we have developed with the JCB PotholePro offers a quick and permanent fix. Changing the long-established ways local authorities repair roads takes time, but I’m pleased that councils across the UK are now starting to see real benefits.” Portable sanitation provider D-tox has rolled out a job management system to eliminate paperwork and boost productivity. The BigChange platform is a complete, simple to use and easy to integrate platform, bringing together customer relationship management (CRM), job scheduling, live tracking, field resource management, job finance, business intelligence. For D-tox, BigChange has replaced three separate systems and added new levels of automation for the business. Established for 29 years, D-tox provides portable toilet and welfare facility products and services, with tankered liquid waste collection and non-potable water delivery. Servicing construction sites, outdoor festivals, shows and events, the West Midlands based company operates a fleet of effluent tankers and smaller vehicles for servicing, delivering and collecting portable units. BigChange integrates with inspHire, the hire management system used for invoicing equipment hire jobs. However, BigChange handles the complete business process with call details entered into the system for job scheduling, routing with optimised allocation to vehicles and drivers. D-Tox drivers receive daily jobs on their Samsung tablets with BigChange software providing Google Maps navigation to site, electronic job sheets and time sheets. In addition, workflows take drivers through steps that include risk assessment, photo capture and POD with customer signature sign off. Managing Director of D-tox, Christian Heritage, said: “There are several aspects of the system that we are still looking to utilise more and these include the customer portals and job collaboration. When we have implemented these parts fully we hope to allow our customers to view their booked in jobs and PODs online. The collaboration tool will be a great asset as it allows other companies using BigChange to work with us when they want us to service units on their behalf.” OLYMPIC SIZED SUCCESS FOR COUNCIL THANKS TO POTHOLE FIXER JOB MANAGEMENT PLATFORMDELIVERS IMPROVED SERVICE FOR SANITATION PROVIDER