By Freya Purnell
The New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) has added SAP Work Manager to its existing portfolio of SAP applications, to help its staff more effectively inspect, repair and maintain an enormous number of outdoor recreation assets and make better informed decisions on the move.
This implementation is the country’s first for SAP Work Manager, and builds on the company’s SAP application footprint, which includes the financial management, fixed asset management and plant management modules.
DOC is using SAP Work Manager as its infield data collection tool, providing employees with a simple and reliable mobile asset management solution.
The application is being used by around 25 inspection staff to capture mission-critical information from the 15,000 to 20,000 inspections that are carried out every year, and to respond to over 100,000 work orders that are issued for preventative maintenance on the assets.
Mike Edginton, manager, partnerships, historic and visitor management at DOC, said data is at the heart of the department’s work.
“Managing the 72,000 assets in our portfolio is all about managing the tremendous amount of data that is associated with them. SAP Work Manager has enabled us to capture the volume of data flowing through our organisation accurately and enables us to efficiently communicate it throughout our organisation,” he said.
“Not only are we able to more efficiently deploy our resources, the solution also helps make my job easier. I am now able to gain a 360 degree view of our operations to help me provide strategic advice and ensure we have accurate information when we need to report to Parliament.”
DOC’s infield staff have welcomed the implementation, reporting that they find SAP Work Manager intuitive to use, and captures all the work they have completed for transfer to the back office systems whether they have wireless coverage or not.
DOC now plans to extend the capabilities of SAP Work Manager across the organisation, and will also look at other SAP cloud solutions, in a line with the New Zealand government’s move towards the cloud.
Selim Ahmed, head of mobile solutions for SAP Australia and New Zealand, said the key to SAP’s successful ongoing relationship with DOC has been the trust they have placed in the vendor to offer the best solution to solve the challenges they face in everyday operations.
“We will continue to share our expertise with DOC to deliver streamlined processes that help increase workforce productivity and allow its taskforce to deliver quality care for the biodiversity of New Zealand in a safe and well-informed environment,” Ahmed said.
Photo credit: NZ Department of Conservation
