- Client
- Aire Valley Catering
- Sector
- Commercial catering service and maintenance
- Outcome
- More reliable systems, faster fixes, better job and compliance data, and a clear plan for what comes next
- What we do
- Ongoing support and development of the business system, engineer apps and customer apps, plus planning for the next platform
The situation
AVC’s engineers work at customer sites across the UK. They depend on their phones all day, to receive jobs, fill in service reports, take photos and send information back to the office.
As the business grew, it needed those systems to be more reliable. Engineers needed to work where the signal is poor. Reporting and compliance needed tightening up. Customers wanted to see what was happening without phoning. And all of it had to happen without disrupting an operation that runs every day.
How the work runs
There’s no single project with a finish date. Work is raised as the business needs it, and we pick it up, whether that’s a fix, an improvement or something new.
Because we know both the software and how AVC’s engineers and office work, problems get diagnosed quickly. A sync failure on one engineer’s phone isn’t treated as an isolated fault. It’s looked at against everything we know about how the system and the business fit together.
What it has covered
The engineer platform. Regular improvements to reliability, usability and speed, plus better reporting, compliance processes and data capture. Offline working has been kept throughout.
Support in the field. Sync problems, upload failures, app faults and device-specific behaviour, investigated and fixed as engineers hit them.
Customer apps. Android and iOS apps that give AVC’s customers direct access to their service information.
What comes next. A roadmap for the next generation of the platform, moving to a more modern architecture while keeping the offline working engineers rely on.
What changed
The engineer apps are more reliable, and problems are fixed faster. Job and compliance records are more complete. Customers can see their service activity for themselves.
Just as important, AVC knows where its systems are heading next. That’s a different position from hoping the current setup holds out a while longer.
In their words
From people we support
CDE took our tired old access database and transformed it into a system that is at the heart of our business. Everything is integrated – from a client’s first phone call to invoicing once the job is done.
Why it has lasted
Long relationships in this line of work aren’t really about software. They come from understanding how the business runs, answering quickly when something breaks, and adapting as needs change.
Over the years we’ve learned how AVC’s field operation works day to day, which isn’t always how it looks on a process diagram. That’s what lets us say what should be built next, as well as build what’s asked for.
Get in touch
Tell us what you’re running
What the system does, who looks after it now, and what you’d like to change. We’ll come back with what ongoing support would look like and what it would cost.
