Overview

Our client is Backflow,

the company that provides services in the area of testing, repairing, and installing backflow devices.

A running business has very different challenges than a startup. So, the client's request was to build the ERP platform that will handle work orders and customer management, scheduling resources.

Challenges

Analyzing the project requirements, we have faced some difficulties to overcome, namely:

Adjust managing regular manual updates of the leads database that was imported from external sources with different structures and the data set,

Calculate the routes for technicians for more than 25 locations in a route that Google API doesn’t allow,

Ensure the customers organized the objects for conducting the tech works and the technician’s access to them,

Protect the management staff from manual mistakes in scheduling complex routes,

Increase the efficiency of using the technicians' working time,

Reduce transport costs that make up a huge part of work order costs execution,

Serve effectively the customer lifecycle: from the state of a lead to the regular customer,

Schedule work orders using the technicians’ working capacity effectively

Solution

We decided to develop a custom solution that would solve all of the challenges. We’ve involved business analysts and data science teams in brainstorming sessions, upon which formed a package of solution suggestions for the business needs. These solutions consisted of several big functionality modules:

Imports

regular automated imports of the new leads databases. It also includes removing duplicates and verifying the data's validity.

Mailing waves

mailing campaign management with the automated constructor of emails based on customized templates.

Work orders scheduling engine

helping the manager to schedule the work orders for technicians in a maximum optimal sequence/date/route.

Logistics optimizing

the scheduled work within a certain day, the number of technicians, and their working hours.

Features

Scheduling scenarios modeling

The data science engine gets the dates period and all the already scheduled work orders for that period. It returns the scenarios, showing what if the manager assigns a particular work order for each of the technicians. The data science engine also assumes in its algorithms many additional parameters, such as:

the timeslot during which the work order should be done,
work order duration,
the maximal possible working time of each technician,
is the technician available specifically on that day,
other parameters

Based on all the provided data and requirements of the client, the manager finally chooses the technician and the day for the order implementation.

Features

Optimizing the transport costs and efficiently utilizing the working capacity

The machine learning engine moves the works between all the free technicians to configure the most optimal route as per time and distance, assuming all the settings for a certain day.
At the same time, the system provides great flexibility. The system makes it possible to enable manual settings applicable to the workload optimization algorithms and add some restrictions or specific conditions for the engine. And this allows the system to flexibly adjust to different agreements between employees and business needs.

Features

SOLR

This is a separate service that allows a quick search through the hundreds of thousands of leads and customers, keeping the system performance on a high level.

Organizing and controlling the technician's working time

The system orders all the actions, documents, and steps the technician should process, in that order as he follows the route, checkpoints on the object, etc.

Tech Stacks

/back-end

Drupal

/front-end

Swift ( iOS)

/back-end

MySQL

/back-end

QuickBooks

/back-end

Google maps

/front-end

Python

/back-end

SOLR

/back-end

LiquidWeb

Client’s feedback

I can definitely say that there would be no way to keep our business going without the custom solution that Requestum built for us. Our company’s main differentiator is based on our software. Requestum has performed well in terms of project management. They’re incredibly honest, and they’re able to quickly figure out the problems that we have and figure out innovative ways to get past them.

-Mike Harbut

Business Owner at Municipal Backflow LLC

-Mike Harbut

Business Owner at Municipal Backflow LLC

Results

As a result of our cooperation, we created an ERP platform that handles work orders, manages customers' orders, and schedules resources. The system we’ve developed and continue extending is automating 80% of business processes serving the customers, employees, and management staff's needs.
The client's business increased sales and the capability of processing more orders within the working day. Also, the net profit increased due to reducing the costs of processing a single work order.