TomTom Work - Case Study

A&E Fire Equipment

“In comparison to other new technologies we‘ve investigated, it’s been a smooth ride.”

The Company

A&E Fire Equipment have been specialists in Fire Protection for over 40 years. They have a staff of 30 including 20 engineers. A&E are a customer focused professional business, that is a well established fire protection centre for the South West and the Midlands. They offer a vast range of services, products, training and specialist expertise for the fire industry. From stand alone alarms to large scale multi-panel systems, A&E has the expertise. They have decades of experience installing, testing, and maintaining fire alarm systems. A&E work with many of the leading manufacturers and either stock or source components for a wide variety of equipment. They have a 24hr alarm receiving centre for immediate fire brigade response, 24hr engineer call out support, etc. Their large variety of customers includes government authorities, schools, universities, NHS trusts, retail, business, residential and individual customers.

The Challenge

A&E was working with a tracking system previously, but it wasn't in realtime and not flexible, so they used it mainly to compile private mileage figures. Prior to the TomTom Work solution communication costs were very high, as they were mainly using mobile phones to speak to the engineers. Furthermore, processing jobs that came in during the day was complicated and time consuming. New job details were handed to the drivers in the morning, they then had to organise their routes themselves using regular maps. A&E’s engineers highlighted traffic and navigation problems. In order to effectively handle emergency call outs throughout the day A&E decided to look for a new solution which will simply locate their vehicles wherever they were.

The Solution

In September 2006 A&E Fire Equipment Ltd. launched a fleet of newly designed ‘A&E’ vans, and were one of the first UK companies to install the TomTom Work solution. They are now able to allocate work more efficiently because they know where everyone is at all times and who is closest to an unexpected job. Because of this, the day is used more efficiently and the decrease in the amount of navigation problems has also helped. “The satellite navigation is excellent because it’s improving journey times and therefore reducing costs - e.g. they use less fuel. More jobs can now be fitted into the day". Ed Stallard (Business Development Manager) says, “Two-way communication, this has been an improvement in the handling of emergency call outs, which can be 24hr. Orders can go straight to the vehicle, and we don’t have to ring everyone to see who is nearest". Ed expects to see a reduction of phone bills. “It also cuts down the time handling a job from an administrative point of view". And because of the optimisation of route planning, fuel costs are expected to reduce significantly as well. “With TomTom Work we are improving our customer service - we can give a more efficient response to our customers: faster, more professional, more efficient. TomTom WebFleet is really easy to use. All extras, detailed mapping and live information all right at your fingertips and all surpassed our expectations”.