Introduction
Government organisation, the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) are the UK body in charge of driving theory and practical driving tests for all motor vehicles. With 345 driving test centres around the UK and well over 1.5 million tests taken each year, the agency is constantly booked up. Priorities for the DVSA include offering candidates driving test appointments within 6 weeks, honouring 98% of confirmed reservations at test facilities and making efficiency savings of £1 million.
As well as hosting driving tests the DVSA have many other purposes such as; approving driving instructors; annual lorry, trailer and bus testing; performing routine checks and tests of vehicles at random to ensure they’re road-worthy and drivers have compiled with all legal legislation and standards set; and, for drivers over the drink-driving limit, setting out courses and the content of those courses offered to offenders to prevent repeat offences.
The agency must adhere to strict government guidelines as well as keeping up with updates and changes, particularly the law as well as modernisation to ensure practices don’t become antiquated.
Background
The DVSA wanted to modernise the process of recording test data from driving instructors across the UK, their solution was to provide test instructors with tablet devices to meet this need. In turn it was identified that a suitable storage and charging unit was required within the test centres for the tablet devices.
To allow the DVSA to be efficient in this endeavour and to get the most out of a single charge, tablets must remain in the best possible condition to ensure longevity of the battery therefore, they needed a smart charging solution for battery preservation. It was also decided that battery packs must be supplied in order to ensure a device doesn’t fail during a test. Not only did the DVSA need a unit to charge and store the devices but the battery packs would need to be considered also. The charging solution would need to preserve the battery to ensure the longest possible usability of devices. Safeguarding of cables was another critical factor as frequent damage and replacement of cables can soon be costly to big organisations with hundreds of devices. Lastly security was paramount in this project; driving test centres see hundreds of new people in and out of buildings weekly making security and safeguarding expensive tech equipment a challenge. Not only did the storage and charging unit need to protect devices from damage, it would also need to safeguard against possible theft.
The DVSA required at least one charging unit per driving test centre with a view to charging 20 devices in each unit; 10 iPads and 10 battery packs. Due to time-constraints the DVSA wanted charging solutions to come pre-wired with specific cables. Finally, the units would need to be delivered, installed and checked to 235 driving test centres throughout the UK in a snug timeframe ensuring project was complete within a 4 month period.
The Criteria
As with most government projects on this scale, the job went out to tender. The specific requirements for this tender were:
- Manufacture of 260 charging units, each designed to house 10x iPads and 10x Battery packs
- Fitted with Apple Lightning charging cables but also Samsung Micro USB charging cables to future proof units/charge wider range of devices if require
- Protect cables to guard against damage, loss and theft
- Preserve batteries to ensure longevity of devices
- Include stringent security and theft-proof measures
- Competitively priced, government budgets stretched as thinly as possible
- Supply these 260 units to 235 UK driving test centres
- Quality control check at point of delivery
- Quick turnaround – 14 week turnaround from start to finish.
The Solution
LapCabby designed and presented a bespoke unit to meet DVSA needs; the ‘Lyte 20 Single Door Mini’. This design consists of a compact, static, robust 18mm MFC carcass with a single locking door. Providing straight-forward access to individual device compartments that store the devices horizontally within a compact footprint. The separate, lockable, front facing power compartment incorporates a 20 port USB power board enabling the unit to charge 10 iPads and 10 battery packs at once, it secures all USB charging cables, preventing the cables from being removed from the device compartment. Each Lyte unit was carefully pre-wired with Apple lightning and Samsung Micro USB cables – cable management clips and portholes were incorporated into the design to ensure the longevity and safety of charging cables. The outer design of the unit included a ‘U’ bolt anchor, security cable and padlock to secure the units to their location to protect against theft.
Many suppliers competed but LapCabby were awarded the tender for DVSA in partnership with XMA.
After successfully winning the tender due to competitive pricing and meeting the requirements of the tender precisely LapCabby and the DVSA, via reseller; XMA, went about working out the specifics of a custom-built solution and custom service offerings. Careful planning and consultation was necessary throughout the project in great detail but LapCabby got all stakeholders – DVSA Project team, DVSA sites and XMA to successfully sign off on the plan.
A 14-week timescale was agreed; 12 weeks to design and produce the units and a further 2 weeks to dispatch and deliver all units to the 235 test centres.
After successfully manufacturing all 260 Lyte 20 units within the 12-week timeframe, LapCabby set about rolling these units out across the UK to the test centres specified. LapCabby decided to use their own in-house drivers who were already accustomed to offering a complimentary ‘unwrap and check’ service. Each driver received specific training before delivery deployment, each unit had to be unwrapped, plugged in and tested upon delivery. The had to ensure every unit and all cables were working to full capacity before the driver could complete the job. They were also briefed and given spare parts to fix units should there be any electrical components not functioning properly. So, in the agreed timeframe, these units were rolled out and installed via a ‘white glove’ service. Daily reporting on progress throughout the ‘roll-out phase’ kept all stakeholders fully informed and meant any unforeseen circumstances could be instantly addressed and resolved.
Why LapCabby?
Because of such extensive planning and organisation there were very few unforeseen difficulties; one delivery was diverted to a hotel room approximately 2 miles away as the test centre in question had to be closed due to structural damage, 3 site deliveries were re-planned due to the unknown early closing of test centres.
The team of drivers delivered an ‘exceptional service’ according to the DVSA which resulted in a 100% success rate, which is almost unheard of in such a large-scale project. LapCabby have received extremely positive feedback from the DVSA, and indeed the reseller; XMA – LapCabby’s direct customer. In this rather complicated and detailed order, LapCabby were able to offer a completely tailored and bespoke service at an affordable cost to the end user. LapCabby have received praise for management of programme and individual care taken by logistics team when delivering and installing individual units and, overall delivering and meeting all requirements in the designated timeframe.
LapCabby provided bespoke built units manufactured to meet DVSA needs, modifications were made during the consultation process thus ensuring every criteria was meet, this we believe was a unique offering over other competitors.
