The latest news from Meantime IT

In our first newsletter of 2013, we told you about the system we created for the retail training operation of Heathrow Airports Ltd, which they said gave them ‘a level of intelligence [they] never anticipated’. Cast your mind back a little further and you may recall our news story about creating a ‘robust and reliable system’ to manage Heathrow Airport’s Reservist staff during particularly busy times.

Working with one of the world’s largest airport groups is never dull, but this year we’ve been particularly excited about the incredibly rich data we’re able to harness and turn into detailed reports to help Heathrow assess and improve its performance during those periods when their resources are stretched.

The Reservist system was built to allow Heathrow to quickly mobilise their non-operational staff to support their operational teams during busy times, quickly processing details of available staff and their levels of security clearance and directing them to where they were needed. We knew we could do much more with the data we were processing, so looked at how we could turn individual ad-hoc reports into one highly detailed and consistent document.

The report we developed is a mixture of tables, graphs and pie charts that the administrator can use to assess every element of each situation, pre, during and post every Reservist situation. What starts as a simple action by an individual Reservist – simply booking themselves in for duty - turns into a powerful piece of management information, looking at who booked in and who didn’t, who was sent where and whether resources were sufficient. Not only does it allow Heathrow to monitor events to ensure resources are being targeted effectively, it also allows them to look at individual performances and target people for praise or further training.

For us, harnessing data that’s already there is common sense. We’re not advocates of monitoring information in a ‘we’re watching you’ sense – we’ll leave that to the security services. But what we can do is take information that’s readily available and present it in a way that enables organisations to see what works and what doesn’t and, ultimately, increase efficiency.

And in the age of austerity, efficiency is key.

*The screenshot shown is from our development environment. Keen ISO 27001 aspirants like us would never reveal true data!