Centrica equips Its engineers with 7500 Panasonic rugged tablets

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Providing its service and repair engineers with improved ways of working and communication to enhance customer service.

Centrica, the energy and services company operating brands such as British Gas and Dyno, has rolled out 7,500 Panasonic FZ-G1 rugged tablets to its team of UK engineers to improve working methods and ultimately to enhance its customer service.

For the past eight years the company’s engineers have been using the Panasonic Toughbook CF-19 rugged notebooks as their main technology tool for job scheduling, maintenance, viewing diagrams and communications as they carry out service and repairs at customers’ homes and businesses. However, the company wanted to move to a tablet-based device for more intuitive applications for working methods, more flexibility and because its engineers were already very familiar with this type of technology.

The devices have been rolled out ahead of the busiest period for British Gas engineers, who fixed more than 1.2 million boilers last winter.

Speaking about the new devices, Matthew Bateman, Managing Director for Field Operations at British Gas said: “Technology has been at the forefront of how we’re working to enhance the service we deliver for our customers, and how our engineers carry out work.”

"The use of tablet technology gives us more options in terms of application functionality and will introduce different and quicker methods of working, and improved communication for our engineers which in turn will benefit our customers.”

The Panasonic FZ-G1 tablet incorporates high quality front and rear cameras together with optimised WWAN antennae.

Kevin Tristram, UK General Manager of Panasonic Toughbook, added: “As Europe’s leading provider of rugged mobile devices, Panasonic has a relationship with Centrica that stretches back over 25 years. We have built that relationship by combining high quality devices with unparalleled levels of service and a constant focus on the future needs of mobile workers. We look forward to supporting the mobile computing needs of Centrica and its customers with this next generation of rugged tablet computing.”

The Panasonic FZ-G1 tablet

Centrica has invested in the latest 4th generation of the fully rugged Panasonic FZ-G1 tablet, featuring improved performance and communication capabilities, with an increased 14 hour battery life and the Windows 10 Pro operating system to further enhance its reputation with mobile workforces as the 10.1 inch tablet of choice. The device has proven popular with a wide range of industries including retail and manufacturing, as well as organisations with large workforces in the field, such as utilities, logistics, assessors and field service as well as the emergency services.