Dexterra: Saving 100 Hours of Resources Per Week With Facilities Management Software

Dexterra, a Canadian facilities management provider employing over 650 individuals at their Toronto Pearson Airport site, set the goal to push the envelope in technology and analytics to better serve their customers. Dexterra knew a solution was needed to address a variety of objectives correlating with identified business challenges. Providing facilities management services to an airport is no small feat, especially in the Greater Toronto Airport Authority’s (GTAA) case. The Toronto Pearson Airport serves as the primary airport hub for Air Canada and spans a footprint of over 4,500 acres. It’s an end-customer that requires over 650 Dexterra employees to operate, both frontline and management, from janitorial staff, to crowd control stanchions, to baggage cart services. As Dexterra evaluated the path that would benefit an end-user like the airport, they considered a variety of variables that led them to Lighthouse, a facilities management software solution from TEAM Software.

When implementing a facilities management software solution, Dexterra had six goals:

  1. Digitise reporting process.
  2. Improve data integrity.
  3. Improve real-time management of operations.
  4. Mitigate risk.
  5. Improve compliance and provide proof of service.
  6. Streamline tools.

“We first needed to understand our program requirements for a workforce management solution. We looked at what processes we needed to digitise and considered the amount of time it took management and staff to report back and track various factors within our operations,” said Sanel Ahmic, Senior Manager for Strategy and Innovation for Dexterra at the Toronto Person Airport. Ahmic managed the Lighthouse project implementation, including future planning of how the system will be utilised. “That included think issues, tasks, audits and other paperwork. We knew that digitising would help with internal and external reporting while providing us with future insights and forecasting solutions.”

In addition to examining requirements related to processes and operations, Dexterra considered the people-side of a digital transformation as well.

“We looked at our own employed workforce and where their comfort level was with technology. We needed something with a user-friendly interface. That’s how we found Lighthouse. As we considered the product, we were provided with ample detail of the system and sufficient time for testing. Once we decided to implement, expert support staff for the Lighthouse product were accessible to us every step of the way through implementation,” said Ahmic.

After a short pilot program within the Toronto Pearson Airport’s Terminal 1, Lighthouse was implemented across the airport over a phased, three-month timeline. It was a process that involved key stakeholders from across Dexterra’s organisational chart, ensuring leadership oversight and executive approval, project management from Strategy and Innovation and seamless coordination with Operations teams like custodial and waste management, customer care and quality assurance.

Lighthouse is now an integral part of the GTAA’s workflow at the Toronto Pearson Airport. At the start of shift, cleaners can log in to Lighthouse to report tasks and act on any issues assigned to them, while the workforce management tool records their location for compliance and reporting.
Assistant managers, quality assurance team leads and supervisors audit work completed by the cleaning team and can open issues after an audit, inspection or during walkthroughs. Senior management creates dashboards for the quality assurance and support services teams to monitor operations, including compliance numbers against contract, while gaining visibility over the entire company’s data for strategic decision-making. Less than a year following initial implementation, Dexterra realized value from Lighthouse.

“The biggest value so far, and perhaps the most immediate, was the amalgamation of all of our existing systems into one,” said Daniel Wright, Vice President of Airport Operations at Dexterra for the Toronto Pearson Airport site. “The ability to live-track service and record all qualitative data like issues, tasks and inspections meant that we could replace multiple tools with one. Lighthouse has become our platform for all our employees, from our cleaners to our senior management. It’s easy for the end-user but also intuitive for management to build forms and replicate our paper processes, view reports and delve into analytics. The amount of visibility it provides of our operations is crucial.”

Digitising processes, specifically in reporting, has been key, both in data integrity and time management. With Lighthouse acting as a single source of truth for company data, Ahmic estimates that Dexterra has been able to realise up to 100 hours per week of saved time, simply by improved reporting processes. Rather than being tied to an office-based desktop system and paper process to complete reports, management is now able to input all work orders, reassign issues and complete audits directly in the Lighthouse mobile solution, translating into an estimated minimum 30 minutes per day savings in time efficiencies. Ahmic also estimates once they implement other functions of Lighthouse, like work scheduling, up to 16 hours each week could be saved.

Using Lighthouse has also helped streamline processes like Dexterra’s “Don’t Walk By” (DWB) program — a health and safety initiative for reporting hazards in the workplace. Prior to Lighthouse, Dexterra used a third-party system created by their corporate team, which was underused by their frontline workers as a hazard reporting tool. Through Lighthouse, they added the DWB categories as selections within the “Issue” functionality, making it easy to see if a hazard has been reported. Dexterra currently has a quota of one hazard report per employee per month but averages almost 1.5 hazards reported per employee per month after implementing Lighthouse. Improving the DWB system as a whole provides a safer environment for the customers visiting GTAA’s properties, while mitigating risk. As they continue to revisit the data through Lighthouse and make improvements, Dexterra has plans to improve this metric further by increasing to three hazards reported per employee per month.

Dexterra’s plans for continued improvements don’t stop there. They aim to leverage Lighthouse to its fullest extent to best support their end-clients, including plans to roll out access directly to their customers. This means companies like GTAA could be able to report issues as they come across them directly through Lighthouse, lessening the number of steps a reported issue needs to go through before it reaches the applicable frontline staff for resolution, as well as improve demand-based cleaning.

“We’d recommend Lighthouse for anyone looking for a workforce management solution that needs to keep track of contract compliance, monitor service quality, perform inspections and digitise their processes,” Ahmic said. “Our resources within TEAM Software for the Lighthouse product have been transparent in providing us support and updates on site specific and system-wide developments. They work with you as a partner and listen to your needs and requirements as a service provider, which we at Dexterra greatly value.”

Learn about how Dexterra achieved the six goals above after implementing Lighthouse by downloading our free case study.