T H White Lorry Cranes estimates it has cut admin by 60 hours a week after its 36 field-based engineers adopted r2c Online maintenance management platform.

John Farmer, head of aftersales at the company, which is the sole distributor of Palfinger cranes in England and Wales, said:  "In the past (like much of the marketplace) our engineers would go to site, complete a handwritten LOLER inspection and post the paperwork back to the office.

"We would then key the information into our system, photocopy and send a copy to the fleet office.

"It was a very manual process, with endless filing cabinets. It also meant an inevitable delay from the inspection being completed to the customer receiving their paperwork”.

Today work is pushed out to engineers by T H White’s central control centre via the web based r2c Online system.

The system is supported by an offline field-based application, accessed on a tablet device, enabling the field engineer to complete a digital inspection sheet in areas without internet connectivity.

Once the inspection is completed on site, the system automatically emails a copy to all the necessary parties, as well as archiving the document in a digital filing cabinet making the asset accessible anytime, anywhere.

Farmer added: “We have seen a dramatic reduction in time spent on administration.

"Our field service engineers complete more than 800 jobs a month, which were previously all processed manually.

"Today quite literally at the push of a button everyone knows that their crane is compliant without the need for posting paperwork and making phone calls.

"We’ve got rid of six filing cabinets so far.”