In motion with data: Elevating customer experience with Spatio

Growing demand

"We notice in most European countries that there is growth in the demand for stairlifts and home lifts," begins Eelco Ree, Managing Director of TK Home Solutions, his story. "This is because we are getting older and also because the elderly population is growing due to aging. What we also see in certain countries is a rising trend of people wanting to stay at home. People are spending and investing more and more time and effort to stay at home, and our solutions, like other home automation, are part of that."

Investing in R&D

"TK Home Solutions is a mature organization, but work is still being done every day and every week to further develop the products. Like Axelio, formerly Newminds, we never stand still. We invest significantly in R&D, and our stairlift receives new technology every year. Of course, there are also regularly new legal standards and safety regulations that we must comply with. We always prefer to ensure that we are compliant before the relevant standards come into effect."

Connected stairlift

"Our connected stairlift is always connected to our cloud via a wireless connection, allowing us to read the status of the stairlift in real-time. This way, we can detect problems in advance. Axelio is also always developing and constantly comes up with new application features. That is one of the reasons our partnership works so well. We are both in the game in the same way. Their core business is automation, and we make good use of that. We are also becoming increasingly digital, and in that sense, we match very well with each other."

Fast order-to-delivery

"IT is very important to us. In addition to SPATIO, we also use a custom-made order-to-delivery (O2D) application. Axelio has created a production planning board for us, in which we have a connection between our factory in Krimpen aan den IJssel and all Home Solutions in Europe. They have a real-time connection with each other, allowing us to align our production capacity and demand.

When an order comes in for a lift, we can reserve a production slot in our factory in real-time and simultaneously reserve a technician. It is important for our customers that we can produce and deliver as quickly as possible, and this solution has ensured that we can make the order-to-delivery even faster. Since every stairlift is custom-made, that direct link with our factory is very important."

Real-time insight

"We use Spatio to plan our service, such as installation, maintenance, and repairs. And in several countries, we also schedule our representatives' appointments in Spatio. Everything is connected in real-time, so our technicians feed our system with information about the stock of parts they have with them. This way, we keep the response time as fast as possible. If there is a malfunction, we know exactly which technician is nearby and has the right parts with them. With a connected stairlift, we sometimes know that a technician is needed before the customer is aware that something is wrong."

Automatic route planning

"Spatio is not irreplaceable, but it does form the backbone of our operations and service department. For our service reputation, Spatio is therefore truly essential. We work smarter because we have real-time information about what is happening within our organization. We know exactly who is where and what the stock is of a technician. Our planning board is also integrated with the APPXSPATIO Management System, which allows us to apply automatic route planning.

Due to our large customer base, we are talking about thousands and thousands of jobs per year that we need to execute. Together with Axelio, we have developed a solution in which we can input all our order requirements, and the system automatically creates a complete route plan for us, with a thousand jobs at the same time. This provides us with a very efficient planning, which is very important for us. Additionally, this also means that we can reduce travel time, travel costs, and CO2 emissions. This last point contributes to our sustainability goals."

IT partner and sounding board

"We have been working with Spatio for over 10 years. First in the Netherlands and since 2018 also in the rest of Europe. Spatio works well and very efficiently, so it was a logical choice to roll this out further. Axelio has a lot of knowledge in-house about digitizing planning tools. They have all the knowledge about our ERP package within Axelio, and the whole team is just fantastic. It is their own product, they know it inside and out. This means that the support, which is incredibly important in IT, is exceptionally good. They are not only good at development but also at thinking along with our business. Because we have been working together for so long, they know our business very well. Axelio is not only our IT partner but also a sounding board and a good innovation partner."