Stock Management

“Before the Covid-19 pandemic arrived we in St John identified the need to replace an outdated method of recording our assets. having just selected CSS to partner us on this journey and as the pandemic took hold we decided to press on with this transformation knowing that it would be a difficult ask for all concerned. As the core team worked on developing the solution and it’s implementation, St John volunteers had already given hundreds of thousands of hours of their time, supporting the NHS Ambulance Trusts, in hospitals and as part of vital community projects such as being asked to train staff volunteers from across all walks of life to deliver the COVID-19 vaccination programme. Knowing that we needed to continue to look forward and consider what the ‘new normal’ may look like we felt that having a solution such as Pro-Cloud was vital.”

“This has been a great project to lead on behalf of the charity and the support received from the whole team at CSS has been outstanding throughout the tender, and pre implementation phases. They have proven to be reactive to our requests for small changes in processes and capabilities and delivered on three specific development work streams. We have created over 415 locations and in the region of 500 vehicles and spent 6 months ‘laying hands’ on all our equipment. We now continue to go from strength to strength and this improves our safety and governance for our patients and volunteers.” 

NYFRS evaluated several asset management systems on the market prior to its decision of awarding BlueLight the contract based on its potential compatibility of use within the fire and rescue sector. CSS & NYFRS have worked closely & continue to work in developing BlueLight as an essential asset management tool with a smooth end user experience for the wider service. The transition away from a database paper based system to a ‘live’ asset managed platform has already had a massive impact through accurate catalogue data, stores management, control of external testing & operational lifespans of equipment in the field through to appliance inventories and scheduled testing on station. NYFRS supplies personnel & crews on station have all embraced the BlueLight system and are seeing the benefits of their own personal ownership of the system. The end user engagement in BlueLight was at the forefront of the NY project ensuring that the system was easy to use thereby maintaining its data accuracy.

Implementing this system has allowed our service to finally become ‘paper free’. We no longer require the use of paper prescriptions and all delivery staff are able to use their hand held devices effectively and efficiently. This has greatly reduced the amount of admin work required by the office staff and most communication between our service staff and clinicians/prescribers can be done online. As with every new implementation, we have and continue to experience the odd ‘hick-up’ and glitch. This was envisaged and understandably unavoidable in areas. The customer services team and IT support have been excellent for us and issues are looked at and sorted in a timely manner. They remain in constant communication with us and feedback at every opportunity. Again reducing the amount of stress for staff members and prescribers.

I would highly recommend this service to others and our service has certainly gained from procuring this system. The whole experience has been positive!

Staff feedback: We are confident that the investment we have made, supported by the good relationship we have developed with CSS (Europe), will soon begin to pay for itself as well as greatly improvising visibility and assurance that we are getting the best out of our operational assets and minimising our whole-life costs. So much so, that we are already making plans to utilise the BlueLight system to manage other assets across our organisation. Based on progress to date, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend another FRS to invite CSS (Europe) to tender for their AMS.

The CSS lead has clinical experience and this has been a great asset in forging a shared understanding of how the project is progressing. We have noted quick turnaround on amendments to the questionnaire, good levels of support on implementation and advice freely shared on lessons learned by other similar projects. What has been particularly impressive regards this project lead for these tools is a flexibility to acknowledge issues arising, but an openness to change and the request of improvement from their software development team.

The Derbyshire contract has used the clinical assessment tool to monitor and shape decision making regards pressure care mattresses. The CSS lead for this project has been instrumental in developing this tool through partnership working with the commissioning team and their equipment lead  practitioners. Amendments to the tool have been required, as sometimes there are unexpected consequences, and wording used in questionnaires changed to accomplish the desired results. Recommendations made by the tool have harmonised equipment prescription, and supported junior staff to understand the critical elements of safe prescription.

It was clear from the tendering process that Pro-Cloud AMS was a quality product that could meet our requirements and provide a value for money solution. Since awarding the contract, the team at CSS (Europe) have proven themselves to be both responsive and supportive in their approach to working closely with our project delivery team to develop their core Pro-Cloud system into the BlueLight solution that is tailored to meet our specific needs as a fire and ambulance service.

Although we are still in the rollout phase, we are pleased with how CSS (Europe) have struck the right balance between being receptive to feedback from our staff and providing their own constructive challenge back to us about how we can streamline and improve the existing processes we use to managing our operational equipment assets that are so critical to our role protecting the communities of County Durham and Darlington.

We procured the services of CSS and TCES in April 2018, the whole experience has been positive.

We were initially advised that an implementation of such a service is recommended and envisaged to take a minimum of 5 months. Ceredigion County Council were in such a predicament that this length of time was not an option. This was discussed in length with CSS and unbelievably we managed to implement this service in under 3 weeks. The company used all their resources and man power to aid this process and made the whole process extremely organised, stress-free and efficient. The process allowed our service to remain functional, maintain service standards and ultimately did not have a negative effect on our service users.

My initial concern when procuring the ‘new’ system was the training aspect – training for internal Staff and the prescribers using the system. Again, CSS made this process extremely easy and stress free. They provided us with enough man power and resources to carry out the training process for all staff in fewer than 6 working days. We could not ask for better!

The BBC Archives procured the Pro-Cloud Product from CSS in 2017. We have worked together to tailor the Pro-Cloud Stock management Product to meet the BBC Archives specific requirements. CSS (Europe) provided features and functionality to enable precise storage management, auditing, and reporting of the BBC’s 7 million media assets.

The CSS team took the time to understand our business needs, including all the intricacies of such a historic Archive, and how we would like to use this system to deliver our business processes; once launched, CSS (Europe) worked with the Archives team to migrate our data from our existing stock management product ensuring accuracy and rationalisation throughout the process.

CSS (Europe), having a clear understanding of our business process, have provided the training and training support for users. This has been a straightforward and well documented process enabling the Product to be quickly adopted by the user base.

The Archives have been successfully using the product since its deployment – it meets our current requirements and we are satisfied that it will continue to do so.