Boone County, KY Streamlines Operations and Saves Time with Cloud-Based Software
Boone County, KY had an inefficient process for managing their work orders and communication to requestors. Kate King, Property Maintenance Office Manager, had a lot on her plate, and keeping up with the paperwork and phone calls added to her busy workload. She had to spend a lot of time coordinating with others about what work was being done. If she had questions about the requests she received over email or inner office mail, she would have to call requestors to get a complete picture. She often felt like she was doubling or tripling her work with all the follow-up and duplicate work requests
The County purchased Brightly's Work & Asset Management to help streamline their work order process. The online system is a perfect fit because it’s so user-friendly that everyone was able to learn the system fairly quickly. King says, “Work & Asset has helped us save time and be more efficient. It’s a whole lot easier than what we did before. It’s clear cut for requestors to input their work order and now I’m not fielding all the phone calls that I was before. "
Having this system has freed me up to do more important projects for my department. It’s probably saved me anywhere from 25% to 50% of my time.
Another result that’s come with implementing Brightly's software is that King can easily see what work needs to be done and can quickly look up statuses on jobs. She can pull reports and see where their team is on work. The fact that the system is cloud-based also offers her some major benefits. “Even when I’m not in the office, I can still go in and assign work orders and complete jobs that are finished,” King says. Work & Asset Management came in handy for the department when they had pipes freeze and burst in the attic of one of their buildings. There was a lot of damage to repair and the team was able to track everything they needed to for insurance purposes. King says, “If they asked for it, we had it. We were able to provide all the documentation they wanted, which was really good.”
Their department can use information from the system to justify resource needs. They track cost and labor hours, so they have evidence that a piece of equipment might be reaching the end of its useful life. As technicians come up on retirement age, the department can show how many labor hours they will lose and justify new hires. The department knows the importance of legacy planning and King adds, “We need to have new people come in and train before others retire so that we can pass on knowledge.”
The County has been able to greatly help their work order process, improve communication with requestors and provide documentation of work when needed. “Everything is so much better now – we’re saving time and getting more efficient. I’d recommend Brightly to anyone,” King says.
