In March 2013 Vodafone New Zealand announced a 10 year partnership with the New Zealand Police to bring modern mobile technology and apps to frontline staff.
From April this year [2013], Vodafone New Zealand will deliver customised mobile services and smartphones to NZ Police, enabling more than 6,000 frontline response, investigation and community Police officers to securely access information about suspects, vehicles and locations while on the move. Almost 4,000 of these officers who need to undertake more complex data entry as part of their job will also be provided with a tablet. Use of the devices will mean frontline staff gain 30 minutes productivity per shift, which equates to approximately 520,000 hours each year – the equivalent of about 345 frontline officers. The expected time savings of 30 minutes per officer per shift will be reinvested into preventative policing activities.
The news from West Yorkshire this week hits a similar note: the Police there are doing the same, with similar numbers:
West Yorkshire Police has bought up to 4,000 Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phablet devices to replace traditional pocket notebooks for frontline officers and staff.
Essentially a mid-sized cross between a smartphone and a tablet, with a larger than normal screen, the Samsung devices will be pre-loaded with applications to enable officers to record crimes without having to return to the police station.
West Yorkshire Police said this would reduce the amount of time spent on administrative tasks and increase the amount of time police spend on the beat.
A nationwide audit of police forces in the UK conducted two years ago found that mobile devices enabled officers to spend, on average, 18 minutes longer on the street per shift.
West Yorkshire Police believes each extra minute on the street per officer, per day, equated to a million pounds worth of additional policing per annum.
It hopes to enable up to 7,000 police staff to use the devices in the future, said assistant chief constable Andy Battle.
James Robertson of Step Two said many years ago that saving time on your intranet is a bad metric. I wonder what he’d say to the two examples above?
Categories: Tools & Technologies
Michael Sampson 
Thanks for the heads-up Michael! These are exactly the sort of enterprise mobility solutions that we’ve been arguing for for years — great to see them happen in a challenging environment such as a police force š
And as for the “saving time is a bad metric”, that refers to the very fluffy “I’ll save 5mins per day *looking for things*”, multiplied out by the number of days, number of staff, etc.
Actual time saved — the paper process took 15mins to do, now the online solution can be done in 2mins — absolutely counts!
Hopefully we can get one or both of these examples to enter into next year’s Intranet Innovation Awards, which open in April.
There’s a specific category just for mobile:
http://www.steptwo.com.au /iia
Thanks for the clarification. And yes, both are great examples.