Jevern Partridge is the main force behind Ridge Solutions Limited. With over 15 years of hospitality experience in operations and as an IT specialist, Ridge Solutions has all the experience required to manage large scale hospitality IT projects. An overview of previous assignments can be found below.
Institute of Directors (IoD)
Supplier Analysis - When the Institute of Directors were researching the marketplace for potential suppliers for their new banqueting system, they called on Ridge Solutions to help them. Ridge Solutions identified the possible suppliers in the marketplace and then provided an independent analysis of the two shortlisted suppliers.
This involved reviewing the response that each supplier made, and evaluating this against
- The system requirements for the IoD
- The potential for growth of the product
- Historical service levels to existing customers
- Cost
Ridge Solutions then made a recommendation to the Institute of Directors.
The reason the Institute of Directors chose Ridge Solutions was:-
"We asked Ridge Solutions to come in and review our potential suppliers, because they had specialist knowledge of the marketplace and were able to quickly help establish which supplier best met our requirements. From that initial involvement an on going relationship developed in supporting sound IT solutions for the Hospitality Division.”
Ian Campbell, The Institute of Directors.
House of Commons
Electronic Point of Sale System – The House of Commons had a mixture of systems to take money from customers including Girovend, Geller and ECR systems and manual billing in the restaurants. This made it difficult to quickly consolidate sales reports, as different systems provided different management information. The decision to move to a single Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) solutions was obvious. Some of these were:
- It is easier to support a single solution
- Staff could move between areas and use the system easily
- Central pricing policies could be introduced
- For the first time detailed sales information was available for restaurant operations
- Service efficiencies were realised by automatic printing of food orders in restaurant kitchens
- Management information could easily be provided on current and historical sales
- Administration staff headcount was reduced by 20%
The system continues to give benefit to the House of Commons, and allows them a single solutions for bars, coffee bars, souvenir stores, self service and full service restaurants. The change in some environments caused huge cultural change where manual bills had previously been produced. This change was successfully managed with regular communication to the users, customers and managers. This allowed them to understand and own the new system so that they realised the benefits to the operation from day one.
Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale – With the old tills staff had separate electronic credit card machines. These ran on old analogue telephones and were very slow. At Christmas, when the souvenir store was at it's busiest, authorisation times could be up to 60 seconds.
The EPoS solution has been chosen based on its ability to allow integrated credit card transactions from the point of sale. This system was implemented and produced the following benefits:-
- Authorisation times were reduced to 3-7 seconds all year round
- There was no longer a need to reconcile credit card transactions as this was completed on the till
- With two connections to the banks, if one failed, the backup took over, ensuring that all outlets were able to complete transactions at all times
At the end of the implementation the old credit card machines were returned which removed the quarterly standing charge and freed up space in the service area.
Network Design – At the outset of the EPoS project there was a requirement to ensure that credit card and account transactions were managed securely around the network. This was not possible in the same infrastructure where internet access and email were sent within the parliamentary estate.
Therefore, a network within a network, known as a virtual private network, was designed and installed. This had the benefit of being separated from normal data and ensured that links to the banks and accounts department were secure from normal users.
Banqueting Sales System - For many years the department had relied on a large manual diary to take bookings for banqueting, this was cumbersome, slow and most importantly could only be looked at by one salesperson at a time.
In this project a specification of requirements was written for the system, and suppliers invited to tender. Three companies were short listed and each system was reviewed in detail. Finally a preferred supplier was selected and their system implemented.
The benefits to the department were obvious. Anyone could access the diary at any time for sales prospects. Operational managers were also given view only access to allow them to see events details. Finally, the invoice for the event was created automatically by the system. This replaced the manual invoice which was then re keyed.
"Jevern's ability to introduce a computer system that fitted in to the way our operation worked, rather than changing our operation to fit in with the computer system was first class. The system went live on the date we had all agreed at the beginning of the project, and no bookings from the old system were lost or duplicated. Fantastic."
Charlotte Berry, Banqueting Sales Manager, House of Commons. Now with the Compass Group
Time Recording System – The old time recording system provided a single print out per day of staff clocking times. If the printer jammed when this was printing, the readouts for the day were lost. Additionally if users clocked on in building A but clocked off in building B, the system was not connected and the trail of what happened to the user was lost.
This was unacceptable as managers wanted to manage staff overtime, absence and lateness. The system was upgraded, and all information was stored in a single database for all four buildings so that all operational managers could view the staff that they were responsible for. Managers could look at an individual or groups of employees, in real time or over a number of days or months to establish patterns from historical data. This helped to reduce overtime and improve the ability to manage absence which was otherwise going unnoticed.
Windows NT standardisation - The need for computers had grown during the nineties as more operational staff received a computer. However, with different models of computer, with different operating systems and software packages, came lots of problems. Software upgrades were time consuming as each PC needed a different approach, and whilst some PCs could run certain software, other PCs could not. Therefore as part of a Parliament wide strategy, all PCs were replaced with a single model, which ran all the software the department needed.
This allowed users to be able to work from any PC as their settings moved with them wherever they went. Visits to fix simple problems were unnecessary as users PCs could be controlled remotely from a central point.
Overall this gave a more stable platform for users to operate with, and reduced the number of visits to PCs to fix simple issues, which allowed personnel to be more productive and get on with their every day jobs, rather than wait for problems to be fixed or for slow computers to complete their task.
Web Site Launch and Development – The customer base at The House of Commons is largely static. The same people use the same facilities most days. One of the best ways to communicate opening times and daily changing menus was to provide the information on an intranet site. Jevern was responsible for the design, development and launch of the site which provided users with among other things, daily menu changes, opening hours, banqueting brochures and souvenir price lists.
From launch, visits to the intranet site doubled week on week for the first quarter as internal promotions increased awareness of the site. The site is updated on a weekly basis providing menus for all of the catering facilities. Site analysis proved that people visit the site before they eat to establish which venue to choose to visit. Therefore special promotions were easily communicated through this media.
The site became the second most popular in parliament and is now a key communications tool for the department.
The House of Commons view on the work completed by Jevern was:-
"Jevern has now developed to allow him to manage multiple projects at the same time, as well as dealing with the day to day operational systems. Although many projects are now completed simultaneously, the attention to detail, budgetary control, and management of resources are still achieved in a seamless manner."
Sue Harrison, Director of Catering, House of Commons.
House of Lords
Sales and Banqueting system - The House of Lords was operationally smaller that the House of Commons and had no IT staff specific to its area. Therefore, Jevern provided consultancy advice and drafted the operational requirements for the House of Lords banqueting IT system. This allowed the House of Lords to issue invitations to tender with the knowledge that the document covered all of their operational requirements and ensured that they purchased a system to assist in the running of their banqueting operation.
The Dorchester Hotel
Intranet - The Dorchester Hotel had recently upgraded the majority of their PCs to standardise their systems. However, the IT department was small and a recurring complaint from PC users was that when they called with a problem there was frequently no answer to their call. It was often important for IT staff to be away from their desk, and therefore the best solution was to allow users to log support calls over the intranet. Users could log a call from any PC. Also, this allowed support staff to pick up the call from wherever they were in the building and respond to the users query.
Jevern provided consultancy advice on an intranet database solution for the hotel, to help support this process.
