Edmund Nuttall won a contract from Cheshire Highways in 2004 to repair and maintain more than 4,800km of roads, 80,000 streetlights and emptying some 155,000 gullies.  But maintenance sheets were completed by workers on site, faxed from back at the depot and then scanned for archiving and keyed into the computer system.  It carries out around 100,000 jobs a year.

Now the company is using digital pen and paper from Destiny Wireless with its 20 crews and believes it has saved its client £39,000 and itself a further £43,000.  With the new system, a pen incorporating a digital scanner, the engineers write on a special form and that data is sent by mobile phone straight into the computer system.    This includes photographs taken of the work in progress.

Further reported benefits are:
• Client inspections down 50% saving on fuel costs and mileage
• Quality control inspections by the contractor reduced by 80%
• 27 inspector man days per year saved on verifying work completed
• 54 inspector man days per year saved in travelling
• 46 hours per week or 101 days saved faxing job sheets
• Environmental saving of 100,000+ pieces of A4 paper
• 6 hours per day saved in re-entering data
• 7 hours per week saved in filing job sheets
• Reduction in office space used for storage of paper job sheets.