The Customer
Linde Sterling provide warehousing equipment and fork lift trucks for materials handling applications for a wide variety of industrial and commercial environments. Based in Cheshire they have approximately 160 mobile engineers and 28 workshop engineers who provide a 24-hour emergency call out facility for their customers.
The Key Solution
Linde Sterling has used Key Service Management Software since 1989, initially running on a Unix platform. As their business grew, the way they delivered their service improved and they wanted to provide an efficient 24-hour call out operation, therefore their software needs changed. Linde Sterling considered various options at this stage and despite some other Linde group companies using the SAP system; they felt that Key offered a unique flexibility, which could optimise their business processes.
To maximise the engineering time of both the mobile and workshop teams and improve scheduling Linde Sterling upgraded to Key Enterprise for Windows.
The Results
Key Enterprise provides field engineers with a laptop computer that enables them to obtain critical information remotely, such as parts availability and job detail.
Linde Sterling have dispensed with the use of paper schedules for engineer planning. Work in progress is now tracked efficiently and productivity has increased.
Bespoke reports show the resources and associated costs by each individual maintenance contract, thus profitability by contract can be established. This makes it easier to identify areas to focus on to improve customer service and profitability.
Testimonial
Greg Norris, Head of Service for Linde Sterling worked with Key providing valuable contribution to the development & set up of the Key Enterprise solution.
“IT (Enterprise) has made a big difference to the financial strength of the operation. The availability of cost reports on maintenance contracts is especially useful.”
Greg Norris, Head of Service, Linde Sterling Limited
Key Enterprise software has since been successfully installed in Linde Sterling’s acquired companies; Stephenson’s Enterprise and DBS Brand Factors.
