SHS Gains Back 30 hours of Productivity Per Month With SOTI

Greater Reykjavík Fire and Rescue Service (SHS) has kept the citizens of Iceland’s capital area safe for many years. Receiving approximately 120 emergency calls per day requiring firefighting, rescue and ambulances services, SHS has no time to make mistakes. With four stations located across the capital area of Iceland, they ensure citizens in each community stay safe 24/7. With 20 ambulances and six fire trucks in use, a smooth operation without any errors is crucial for the staff, but especially for those whose lives are in danger.

The Challenge

For many years, SHS supplied outdated mini-PCs to each emergency vehicle. When a PC experienced an issue, staff were required to track down the vehicle and manually solve the problem to avoid further downtime. This made it hard to manage and keep computers up to date. SHS had to ensure the ongoing safety of firefighters when smoke diving. Calculating for oxygen tanks during smoke diving had to be done manually with a pen, paper and mental arithmetic. When moving from mini-PCs to modern tablets, and with the increase in the number of tablets needed, it became more difficult to ensure uptime and keep the tablets up to date.

The Solution

SHS’s reliable partner Edico recommended SOTI’s solutions in 2017. Upon the adoption of SOTI MobiControl, they immediately experienced the benefits of a sophisticated Enterprise Mobility Management(EMM) solution. SOTI allows SHS to remotely manage tablets without having to personally locate and troubleshoot the specific tablet. These tablets are also used to share drawings of buildings used by the fire crew to easily navigate the space before entering the emergency. SHS has recently implemented Android devices to easily receive location updates and GPS tracking. The GPS supported by SOTI MobiControl allows the emergency crew to get where they need to as quick as possible.

The Results

With the help of SOTI MobiControl, SHS no longer needs to hire additional IT staff to manage downtime, saving 30 hours of valuable time per month. SHS has seen productivity increase, as any table -related problem can be fixed remotely, enabling operations to run smoothly. When SHS receives emergency calls, the information is automatically uploaded to the tablet in the vehicle. By utilizing years of accumulated data, the routes have been analyzed and generated by maps from Samsýn, enabling the driver to arrive at emergencies faster. Thanks to the collected data, SHS can determine the most efficient location of a fire station to ensure emergency vehicles have quicker access to the best routes. After moving from pen and paper processes to tablets, SHS can now use an app to keep track of a firefighter’s oxygen tank levels during smoke diving to ensure their safety.