APD wins Supplier of the Year Award

APD have been awarded Supplier of the Year for the second consecutive year. APD’s Artemis, Cortex and Aspire solutions were recognised by the judging panel for achieving significant efficiencies and cost savings, changing and improving the lives of members of the community and helping to reduce deaths and injuries.

The awards were held on Friday 4th December at the prestigious One Great George Street in London. After attracting over 150 entries for individuals and teams across ten categories, the judging panel shortlisted APD the Supplier of the Year category for continuing to make an impact on the levels of service the Emergency Services deliver to the public.

Ricky Amalsadia, Marketing Manager at APD attended the awards – “Collecting the award was an honor. To be shortlisted was overwhelming given the standard of entries again this year. Winning the award for the second year really cements APD and our solutions as best in breed. The award is testament to all at APD that develop, sell, deliver and support Artemis, Cortex and Aspire and our customers who continue using them to improve their service levels”.

In announcing the winner, FIRE editor Andrew Lynch said: “A key point of discussion at the Fire Congress which took place before the Awards, was the importance of shared outcomes from research and working with industry, and so it was pleasing to see a shortlist featuring a range of companies, whilst helping to reduce deaths and injuries.

It’s great to see APD Communications has stepped up to claim the Supplier of the Year award for its work on brands Cortex, Aspire and Artemis, which have been used diversely across the sector from Northamptonshire Police to Dubai International Airport”.

The award recognised APD’s solutions being used in mission critical environments:

Artemis tracking and telematics at Northamptonshire Police has continued to deliver significant cash savings including a 17% reduction in fuel costs, 25% reduction in collisions and 4% fewer tires replaced.

The operational benefits also extend to the removal of paper driver logs allowing officers to be policing for longer. Vehicle utilisation also enables optimum resource utilisation and allocation of vehicles to priority areas to ensure the public continue to be protected.

Cortex was used as the primary communications system during the recent NATO Summit. This enabled officers from Gwent, South Wales, Wiltshire, Avon & Somerset and Gloucestershire to communicate effectively and create a rigid security framework.

Over 4,000 resources were coordinated at any one time through the Cortex system by integrating not only all Police communications, but also CCTV feeds of vehicle convoys and helicopter feeds to ensure the safety of over 180 VIPs, 4,000 delegates and officials, and the public.

In March 2014, Aspire started being used at Front Counters within North Yorkshire Police improving customer service through early risk detection, identification of vulnerable persons and repeat victims, early resolution of customer enquiries and an improved service provision to the public without addition internal processing time.

Aspire has also led to the elimination of duplicate entries and incidents, resolution at first point of contact, better access to historical victim and incident data, improved audit capabilities, accurate data recording, reduced failure demand in the Control Room, consistent processes and the ability to monitor demand. All of this ensures improved service levels delivered to the public.

The Judging Panel had the difficult task of sifting through nearly 150 high-quality entries to reach the shortlist. This year’s Judging Panel included: Peter Holland – Chief Fire and Rescue Advisor, Sarah Benihoff – DCLG Director of Fire Resilience and Emergencies, Steve Hamm – President of the Institution of Fire Engineers, and Paul Hancock – President of the Chief Fire Officers Association.
Commenting after the awards, Event Director Tony Greville said: “After the success of last year’s awards, these second Excellence in Fire and Emergency Awards surpassed our expectations in all areas.

We had more than double the entries of last year, more people at the lunch and more support for the event than we ever dreamed of. It has been fantastic the way the emergency industry has embraced this growing event”.