Blog Archives | Mobiess

Mobiess 10th Anniversary

September 24, 2020/in Blog /by Karl Horner

This month marks a full decade since Mobiess was first launched – and we’ve seen a huge amount of growth and change in that ten years.

When we began, we could never have predicted how our first decade of business would end, with the country – the world – facing a global pandemic, an issue which has impacted the world of Facilities Management enormously.

In 2010, when Karl Horner and Russell Pooley took their first steps into business together, merging their technical knowledge and experience in IT, software design and customer facing solutions, the UK were coming out of a recession and taking tentative steps into embracing mobile devices in the workplace for streamlining data processing.

The growth of the industry has been stratospheric, and even global recessions and changes in leadership, political unrest and pandemics have failed to slow the rollout of mobile solutions, which have made mobile operative more efficient and effective.

All of our solutions were designed with real people in mind and formed as flexible and adaptable solutions to every-day needs in facilities management operations of every scale. You ask, and we configure our solution to meet your needs – tailored to your specific requirements where other providers might try to shoehorn your needs into their existing solutions.

Ten years in business, and still growing, thriving and creating solutions for our customers and partners, is cause for celebration. The Mobiess team are delighted to see our solutions helping FM teams manage the increased workload and pressure of Covid-19 on workplaces across the UK, keeping people safe and secure and enabling both workers and members of the public to be protected with to-the-minute communication on assessments, cleaning audits, work orders and distribution of assets.

It’s more important than ever to maintain accurate, detailed records and communicate the status of your facilities with all the relevant parties. We look forward to continuing to work with our existing customer and new customer during the next 10 years.

Mobiess have once again been awarded a place on the UK government’s G-Cloud Framework.

September 17, 2020/in All News, Blog /by Karl Horner

Through the G-Cloud framework suppliers can provide public sector buyers with cloud-based services. The framework is provided by The Crown Commercial Service (CCS), and offered via the Digital Marketplace. With the government’s mandate of increased cloud adoption, public sector organizations in the UK need to be able to easily understand, implement and use cloud services to drive cost savings and IT efficiencies.

Karl Horner, Managing Director at Mobiess is delighted with the award. “Being selected for the G-Cloud 12 Framework enables us to offer UK Public Sector organisations our suite of Data Collection and Analysis Tools to support the drive towards greater efficiency in an uncertain economic climate.”

Public sector organisations will be able to procure Mobiess’ best in class mobility-as-a-Service Solutions for Asset management, Compliance and Auditing, Work Order and Maintenance management.

As an independent mobile specialist, Mobiess’ software applications are used by companies worldwide to manage and support their assets and facilities management operations across a variety of business sectors – from facilities management, construction, logistics, fleet management to service management.

Health and Safety Gone Mad

September 1, 2020/in Blog /by Karl Horner

In every industry the requirements to adhere to Health and Safety guidelines mean inspections, audits and recording data is important – but Facilities Management sees more of this than most. It sometimes feels that the increase of red tape and H&S documentation is a full time job in itself, making sure that records are kept, checks are made and everyone is complying to the regulations – and keeping all of that information to hand can take up a lot of time and space. In fact, the teetering towers of files and paperwork can be a health and safety risk in themselves if we don’t have a good system!

This year has been one of the most significant when we look at the measures we need to go to for health and safety and protecting our workforce and the people who use the facilities we manage – especially if we have a large portfolio of locations and facilities being used by multiple services users, members of the public and varied workforces managing different projects. Auditing and cross checking every aspect, recording these inspections, updating the team and maintaining records at head office so that each aspect is covered is time consuming and can be a real pain – all the more so in 2020.

The extra steps we’ve all needed to take to maintain standards of cleanliness and safety through the Coronavirus pandemic have created a lot more work, and it’s more important than ever to maintain an effective and efficient system for these records, so that you can evidence that you’re protecting people and adhering to contact tracing if someone should become unwell.

It’s a headache, and it’s a lot of pressure on the teams who need to complete and process these inspections and audits – and the responsibility for H&S regulations being adhered to from Government and organisational guidelines at every level eventually falls onto the shoulders of the ground level workers tasked with the job day to day.

Make it easy on them – and on your back office team who need to maintain and collate all of this information – by investing in a system which can give all the information at the touch of a button, communicate it in real time, capture and evidence data with photographic inputs if any issues arise, immediately allocate remedial work to the right member of the team and streamline your processes in one easy to use, mobile ready app.

Health and Safety is at the forefront of all of our minds as the restrictions of lockdown begin to lift, and we are all moving back into the workplace with an eye on the safety and protection of anyone using that space. Businesses and FM teams are seeing a huge increase in demand for these processes, and in the transparency of the process – meaning that the demand for simplicity in digitised systems is increasing exponentially.

Protecting yourself, your team and your customers has never been easier thanks to the Mobiess Health & Safety Audit App.

Health and Safety may have gone mad – but thanks to this one-stop digital system, which can be tailored to capture the specific data you need and immediately communicate it with your existing back office systems, you and your workers don’t need to. It’s never been easier to maintain your H&S records. Contact us today to find out more.

Measure and Track the Cleanliness of your Buildings, and Safeguard your Staff, in a Busy and Changing World

July 7, 2020/in Blog /by Karl Horner

Maintaining facilities in buildings of any size and condition means keeping records to show that you are maintaining a standard of cleanliness and hygiene that protects people from harm. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has shown more than ever before that cleaning audits are vital to protect those using the space in any working environment.

Our digital Cleaning Audit template is a standalone application which gives your team the ability to maintain records of cleanliness in your facilities, and evidence improvements in any areas where standards need raising.

As part of our library of preconfigured Published Apps, the Cleaning Audit allows you to produce reports which can be shared with stakeholders to evidence your hard work.

Stakeholders are more keen than ever to see assurances that high cleanliness standards are being maintained – and your legal requirement for compliance and auditing means that keeping records of your cleaning schedules and standards is vital.

Our Cleaning Audit app is a simple to use, ready-made solution which lays out the standard cleaning audit that most professionals in facilities management are familiar with – but keeps all the data in one place, sharing records in real time with your team to keep your facilities clean and hygienic, and maintain a high standard of work.

Any issues can be raised immediately with annotated photographic evidence, and this also maintains a record so that you can evidence the work undertaken to improve the issue.

Clearly defined responsibilities and actions can be assigned to specific team members, and reports can be shared with the whole team. Simplify your reporting and record keeping processes, and your work orders.

Available as a standalone app, the Cleaning Audit template from Mobiess can also be added to your existing Insight Suite, further enhancing your data recording process – and all for just £5 per month.*

Simplify your work – and give your team exactly what they need at the touch of a button.

Get in touch with our team, and let us show you how simple it can be; call 0203 411 1795 today and ask for the Cleaning Audit app.

*Per e-form/app per user

Life Cycle Surveys Made Simple

June 23, 2020/in Blog /by Karl Horner

Not all organisations need a full suite of digital solutions for collecting and collating data; sometimes you just need one form to streamline the information you need to collect and share, and find yourself struggling through a market swamped with complex solutions when you just need one easy fix.

That’s why we have created the ‘Published App’ range of products; rather than investing significantly in a full range of services which you just don’t need, simply pick the specific e-forms you need, and see immediate increases in your efficiency.

Easy to use, off-the-shelf apps designed to simplify your processes, the Published App range is available as individual products – priced to suit any budget at just £5 each – and can also be applied as an add-on to your existing Insight Suite.

The first of these services is our ‘internal conditions survey’ – a one-off e-form which captures all the information you need to complete internal conditions surveys, include photographic data which can be annotated to support and evidence the inspection. Ideal for any environment where you need to track condition changes, record any damage and repair data, and create estimated lifecycle costings.

Full digital systems can get expensive – and you may find that you’re scrolling through long lists of forms, data and empty space before you access the information you actually need. When that’s the case, organisations often find that their team just aren’t using the system – because it’s bulky, unhelpful and not user friendly.

Simplify your work – and give your team exactly what they need, all in one place.

One form, one app, one connected, communicative resource where all your data sits together, easy to access and compare, and easy to select specific information for reporting, whether you’re on site or in the office.

Get in touch with our team for a demo, and let us show you how simple it can be; call 0203 411 1795 today and ask for the internal condition survey app.

5 Tips for an Effective Asset Hierarchy

June 4, 2020/in Best Practices, Blog /by Karl Horner

What is the best way to create an Asset Hierarchy?

If you want to streamline, improve and simplify processes for your workforce, particularly when a mix of teams and projects require access to assets at different times, spread across multiple locations, a well-structured Asset Hierarchy allows you to manage surveys and assign work orders in the right places.

Defining your standards and expectations for data collection regarding asset usage and condition means that you can stay ahead of any maintenance needs long before damage causes failure or irreparable harm. This reduces the cost – smaller repairs to prevent failure are simpler to fix than catastrophic damage – and repairing smaller damage is considerably cheaper than replacing failed assets. The impact of downtime on your workforce and your managed facilities is also reduced as vital equipment failing can stop work entirely. This also costs you in man hours, paying people who aren’t able to work, and delaying completion of jobs.

To help you create an effective asset hierarchy we have put together 5 tips based on our many years of experience within the FM industry:

1. Give your Asset Hierarchy an instinctive and logical structure.

2. Follow uniformed approach to asset coding and naming.

3. Only include what you need to.

4. Define asset-specific attributes to ensure consistent level of data capture.

5. Audit and update the information included regularly.

Let’s go through them one step at a time:

1. Give your Asset Hierarchy an instinctive and logical structure.

You may already have a maintenance system in place, with asset profiles for each asset and component listed; if so, you have already completed much of the task. If not, you need to put careful consideration into the profiles of your assets, and the structure of your hierarchy.

Many industries have existing standards for asset identification – so look at those for examples, and then factor in a system which identifies the location and the purpose of your site and the asset in relation to one another.

For example, do you consider a motor as one whole asset (parent) with component parts (child), or are those component parts themselves individual assets (parents)?

Each asset type needs to be assigned a specific, unique identifier with uniform recognisable coding – which leads to our next tip:

2. Follow uniformed approach to asset coding and naming.

By this we mean that you need to follow the same pattern for naming your assets within the system, and ensure that the physical assets can show that code/name in some way (some people label with paint, barcode labels, or some engrave the asset itself.)

The image below shows one such naming system:

3. Only include what you need to.

As we are emphasising the benefits of an Asset Hierarchy and its structure, you might think we’d encourage you to include every single thing you can think of – but that could actually be counterproductive, and make your new, efficient dataset cumbersome – which will make it more challenging for your workforce to actually utilise the system effectively. Cumbersome systems quickly become redundant.

A smaller hierarchy, with more depth per asset, is a more valuable use of time and the system than an overpopulated beast dotted with smaller, unrelated pieces of information. This is not only harder to navigate; it entirely removes the connected data aspect of the tool.

Initially, we would recommend taking your time to input things in order of priority and importance. Your priority is critical machines; things which would either be the most costly or the most disruptive to repair or replace if they fail. These would be the costliest case for downtime, so are the most significant assets to track and monitor.

Following those, you ought to input your most numerous assets; those you have multiples of which are most commonly used, so that you can determine which equipment is where, which is getting the most use, which will be due for inspection and maintenance most quickly, and which can be pulled into place should something fail, to reduce the impact of downtime across the workforce.

Finally, you can begin to return to those first and second rounds of information and input the ‘child’ components – anything repairable or replaceable which is vital to the functioning of those top level ‘parent’ assets.

4. Define asset-specific attributes to ensure consistent level of data capture.

To ensure data collected by a mix of individual engineers and surveyors is consistent, it is important to carefully consider the unique attributes required for each type of asset, and whether that data should be gathered on a mandatory, recommended or optional basis. Defining these attributes will standardise many vital elements and rules including whether a barcode scan is required, business criticality, mandatory photographic evidence, manufacturer details and of course condition grading (and many more.)

Clearly defining your asset attributes helps to achieve a high standard of captured data and maintains a baseline of expectations across your entire field team. This also avoids wasted time due to over-collecting data that is not required, or needing to make costly site revisits due to under-collecting critical data missed first time.

5. Audit and update the information included regularly.

Like any other project, a process of continued review and monitoring is important for developing an effective Asset Hierarchy. Typical issues include:

Duplicated, missing or inaccurate asset systems and types
Inconsistent asset attributes that do not meet the required scope of project(s)
Out of date info related to asset life expectancy (ref CIBSE Guide M or similar)
Inaccurate costing benchmarks for repair or replacement (ref BCIS/Spon’s/NSR)

Mobiess can help you review and improve your existing asset data, giving you a high quality, optimised Asset Hierarchy. Visit our Asset Hierarchy Review page or call us on 0203 411 1795 to speak with one of our technical experts, discuss your requirements, and learn how we can tailor our solutions to meet your needs exactly.