Anglian Water control engineering spare parts using PCF!Stock

Anglian Water (Telemetry Department) have 5 regional Depots situated throughout Eastern England holding all their stocks of spare parts. Engineers when attending call outs need to identify the depot closest to them holding the appropriate spare for the job.

Prior to introducing PCF!Stock, they could only identify what was in stock by visiting the depot - there was no electronic stock control system. This resulted in:

• Wasted journeys - Engineers would call to be told part was in stock, only to drive there and find it had been taken by someone else.
• Poor image to clients.
• Huge stock discrepancies.
• Poor stock rotation, and therefore a problem with obsolescence.

To add to this, the Central stores held a mixture of items purchased for stock (new installations) and items purchased for spares (servicing existing installations) and they had no method of distinguishing between them. This led to all sorts of budgetary and cost centre issues.

After consultation, PCF!Stock was installed on the central server at Lincoln with site licences allowing access from the 4 regional depots. After a process of data entry/import, Anglian have a system which works for them.

• They can now identify exactly what they have in stock and where it is located.
• Maintaining this information is simplified because Engineers drawing spares simply scan 2 or 3 barcodes and the movement is recorded and an audit trail created.
• No hand written documentation required - all work is done on the portable data terminal.
• The central stores now has a clear split in values between their stock items and spares items.
• The software allows Anglian to borrow items from spares to stock and vice versa.
• Replenishment reports are generated to warn about low stock levels.
• Items in the regional depots can be reserved and earmarked preventing other engineers form "stealing" the stock resulting in wasted journeys.

Anglian now have a system that gives them full control over their stocks and spares. They can identify the location of any part and see the complete audit trail from the time of purchase to the time of installation. There are also future plans in place to allow the Engineers to inspect the database and reserve items in the field using hand held pocket pc devices.