20 March 2008

Knowledge Solutions, working in your Niche

Knowledge Solutions provide instant answers to 6,500 officers.

Deploying a new IT system can cause significant disruption to a Police Force and requires careful management to ensure that it is successful. Knowledge Solutions work with numerous Police Forces throughout the UK to help them maximise their investment in new technology whilst minimising the disruption and extraction costs involved.

Recently, one Police Force of 6,500 officers deployed a Records Management System from Niche Technologies Inc. They found that the training learned in the classroom simply wasn't being transferred into the real world.

The training programme for the system was scheduled to take 17 training managers four months to complete. Within the first month of the training programme it became apparent that, whilst proceeding to schedule, officers continued to forget the classroom training when they moved onto the live system. This led to major concerns over the quality and consistency of the data that was being input into the system as officers were simply not equipped to follow the necessary processes.

Clearly, the Niche RMS system plays a key part in this Forces' ICT strategy, and ensuring data was entered into the system consistently and accurately was critical to its success. It soon became apparent that the lessons learned in the classroom needed to be reinforced each time the officers used the application.

Knowledge Solutions, leading providers of knowledge transfer and learning technologies, were selected to solve this problem. Knowledge Solutions' technology ensures that critical skills and learning are captured, distributed, tracked and measured efficiently and effectively, significantly improving productivity and performance.

Within two months of the purchase order being signed, Knowledge Solutions had deployed an in-process support environment designed to guide officers through the application. Linking into the Niche RMS application, Knowledge Solutions' in-process support tool, KShelper, provided officers with a quick and easy method of accessing help functionality, best practice information and other critical knowledge when they needed it most.

Officers were now able to access the help they required every time they used the application, and also be reminded to check for duplicate records, typos and the numerous other errors that skew the quality of the data recorded. As the support functionality is built into the application it is available 24/7, meaning any officers working unsociable shift patterns could also benefit from support on demand.

As the Niche RMS application continues to develop, new features and changes can be flagged quickly and easily across the entire Force, ensuring that application usage remains consistent and the data quality high.

Using Knowledge Solutions technology enabled the Force to significantly improve the quality of the data available in the Niche RMS application. This in turn has reduced the number of staff required to retrospectively clean the database, helping free up resources for other projects.

Knowledge Solutions technology is used by numerous public and private sector organisations to manage major change, including deploying new IT systems, certification of staff, integrating new acquisitions, managing growth and restructuring. Current customers include Police Forces, the NHS, Housing Associations, Central and Local Government, the MOD, and private sector organisations ranging across all vertical markets.