Case Study

Digitally Inclusive Ordering

Taking Control of Allocations and Costs with Together Housing

The Company

Together Housing Group comprises 3 divisions:

Together Housing Association, Pendleton

Together and Newground.

Together Housing have over 1400 employees working across a very wide geographical area spread across the North of England managing 37,000 properties.

Their employees’ roles cover a wide range of activities from visiting customers in their homes, carrying out repairs and maintenance, cleaning and caretaker services and grounds maintenance. Each of the roles has a different workwear or Personal Protective Equipment need to enable them to carry out their role safely.

“We wanted to implement a system that managed the whole process end to end through an online portal that was digitally inclusive.”

The Challenge

Historically, Together Housing used a manual system to order workwear and PPE which resulted in inconsistency in look and quality, often receiving differing quotes for the identical garments.

There were no economies of scale, and minimal control over orders, with different departments developing their own systems and preferences when ordering. Products could be viewed online but then a purchase order had to be raised manually, with some departments using local stockists or giving allowances to individuals to purchase the equipment themselves.

Branding was inconsistent and products varied from site to site. Together Housing had to deal with invoices from a multitude of suppliers and had disparate layers of approval. What Together Housing were looking for was the ability for their procurement staff to order stock online whilst being able to manage garment selection and budget control centrally.

The Implementation

Together Housing were attracted by PWS’ custom-built MyWeb portal, an easy-to-use online workwear, safety wear & PPE management system that takes the effort out of ordering and maintaining stock levels.

As the MyWeb system can be adapted to fit the customer’s specific needs, key features that were implemented included automated restocking, the ability to set pre-approval limits reducing the workload for supervisors and full order tracking from placing the order to delivery.

PWS worked with Together Housing throughout the planning and roll out of the MyWeb system, building bespoke product catalogues, employee databases and approval structures, followed by rigorous testing of the systems.

“We liked the allocation and cost boundaries we could set with PWS. No other supplier could offer this.”

“The support and service provided from our new workwear partner, PWS, has been invaluable.”

The Results

PWS’ MyWeb system has delivered on all of the intended objected and exceeded expectations, with Together Housing being able to better monitor and manage their procurement costs. Invoice quantity have been reduced by up to 98% to just one consolidated invoice per month, backed by detailed breakdown of product and cost to department and even staff level. Using their MyWeb app, all orders are placed by staff within re-approved products, specifications, and price points, meaning that Together Housing have complete control over costs, quality, and branding. By removing the need for individual authorisation for each order placed by staff, the MyWeb system has created significant time savings for Together Housing’s central admin team. Departments have been empowered to manage their procurement within set product and budgetary limits. Together Housing no longer need to sort and redistribute uniform arriving to a centralised location, with every order packed by PWS for an individual department, location or even staff member, this has saved both time and money. MyWeb’s virtual stockroom allows Together Housing to hold stock of high use items, meaning orders can be placed and delivered much faster than their old system. The change from a manual ad-hoc processes to MyWeb’s end-to-end system has been significant, and has transformed Together Housing’s workwear, safety wear and PPE procurement.