August 26th 2009 - 360 Scheduling and Northgate have announced three new Local Authority and Social Housing customers for Northgate Contractors, a module for Northgate Housing which delivers real-time management of the housing repair workforce. Northgate Contractors will provide Wolverhampton City Council, Sanctuary Housing Group and Greenwich Council with the facility to efficiently manage their housing repair and maintenance activities through the integration with the 360 Dynamic Scheduling Engine.

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.

Within Northgate Contractors, the 360 Dynamic Scheduling Engine 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.

“Housing repair and maintenance is a complicated business. It involves multiple skill sets, multiple job types and requires an agile and effective mobile workforce, the 360 DSE ensures that it is utilised to maximum,” said Laurent Othacéhé, Managing Director of 360 Scheduling.