April 28th 2008 - 360 Scheduling and Northgate have announced six new Local Authority and Social Housing customers for Northgate Contractors a module for Northgate Housing providing real-time management of the housing repair workforce. Northgate Contractors will provide Perth & Kinross Council, the London Borough of Hillingdon, Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council, Durham County Council, Stafford and Rural Homes and Cestria Community Housing with the facility to efficiently manage their housing repair and maintenance activities.

Tightly integrated within Northgate Contractors, the 360 Dynamic Scheduling Engine (360 DSE) organises the workload of the whole housing repair work force using an entirely automated online appointment booking mechanism. All the variable information such as operative detail, skills, shifts, equipment, parts required, site location, call details plus SLAs are simultaneously analysed by the 360 DSE. It then computes the best possible utilisation of resources to assign the work to the best-placed and equipped mobile workers whilst providing complete real-time visibility of progress throughout the day.

Northgate Housing is the market leading housing information system managing more than 1.5 million Housing Association and Local Authority properties worldwide.  The Northgate Contractors module has been developed to provide the repairs and service delivery functionality to Northgate Housing customers. With many different trades and skills involved in housing repair it is essential to make the best use of available resources. Northgate Contractors enables effective allocation and scheduling of work, with complete real-time visibility of the workforce, stock control, time sheets, job costing and performance monitoring.

“Housing repair and maintenance is a complicated business. It involves multiple skill sets, multiple job types and requires an agile and effective mobile workforce,” said Laurent Othacéhé, Managing Director of 360 Scheduling. “The Northgate Contractors module complete with the 360 DSE is proving to be a logical next step for Local Authorities and Social Housing organisations that wish to optimise the use of their resources to boost the efficiency, speed and quality of service delivered to their customers.”