TECHNOLOGY developed by a company in Glasgow could mark the end of the traditional police officer’s notebook after it announced plans to expand across the world.

Kelvin Connect, a mobile technology business, has outlined international ambitions for its Pronto platform, which is currently deployed by 16 police forces in the UK.

Upgrading the way law enforcement agencies and the justice system utilise increasingly sophisticated technology has been a major challenge in the UK since the 1990s.

The Pronto smartphone app developed by Kelvin Connect has been described as a fully mobile solution for information management and business process improvement for police officers.

The technology allows data to be recorded on custom-designed electronic forms while officers are on the move. This rationalises back office systems, saving time and improving data quality while also reducing information processing costs.

A trial of the technology with a mid-sized police force in the UK showed that the electronic processing of 60,000 witness statements saved an average of 27 minutes and £42 per statement.

The app also cuts down on errors, thanks to its electronic forms having mandatory fields, which ensures data is entered in the correct format.

Last year an estimated £18 million was saved by the 16 UK police forces who use the “mobile notebook”.

Dyfed Powys Police carried out an audit which showed that 250,000 police hours had been saved annually by using Pronto.

This is mainly because all notes and reports are automatically uploaded to the force’s database, meaning officers are no longer required to write and file reports when they return to the station.

Kelvin Connect was spun-out of University of Glasgow in 2002 and is today part of Motorola Solutions, after the technology conglomerate acquired Airwave in 2016, which had acquired Kelvin Connect in 2011.

Through Motorola’s global Smart Public Safety Solution (MSPSS) portfolio, the company is working to ensure that every emergency service worker has access to digital technology. “Kelvin Connect fits well with that, and we now want to leverage that globally,” said Karthik Sundaram, operations director, from Motorola Solutions.

This has led to expansion of Kelvin Connect’s operations, and while the company was not willing to disclose the scale of investment, Motorola Solutions’ offices in Glasgow have tripled in size in the past year. The number of engineering staff has doubled to 52 since the acquisition and further recruitment is underway.

“There is a lot of talent in Glasgow so we’re looking at it as a premium development centre,” said Mr Sundaram.

Campbell McClelland was one of the co-founders of Kelvin Connect. He is now head of delivery at Airwave Solutions.

He said being part of the bigger Motorola group was critical in helping Kelvin Connect reach its potential.

“There is the financial benefit obviously, but there is also expertise. As part of MSPSS, we are starting to discuss what we do from a mobile data record management and workflow system perspective.”

He said that as Motorola has acquired some other companies, globally, who do similar but slightly different work, much can be learned from intra-business communications.

“I’ve literally just stepped out of a call with a colleague in Chicago and we’re talking about how we bring their functionality to the existing Pronto customer base in the UK, and vice-versa,” he said.

He acknowledged the scale of the challenge in rolling out such a system globally, but added: “We believe that an organisation with a mobile workforce needs to look at data management processes from the front end all the way back.

“Some organisations think that they need to rationalise their back office processes and IT systems and then [move to] mobile, we actually believe you should start at the front end and look at them as a whole end-to-end business process.”

In the UK the system runs on any mobile network and so will not be impacted when the current Airwave network, which is currently operated by Motorola Solutions, is replaced in 2020 with a new Emergency Services Network which will run on EE's 4G network.

North America, where Motorola Solution already works with a number of law enforcement agencies, is another target for the business.

“There are 43 police forces in the UK, globally there are thousands,” said Mr McClelland.

When it comes to international deployment, Mr McClelland said contracts would need to be a big enough challenge to allow Kelvin Connect to look at integrated to whatever back-office solution potential customers currently use.

He also highlighted local culturally challenges, noting that from a business perspective the company was looking for “friendly customers” where deployment was achievable. “In the first instance we’ll need to send some people over there to complete project deliver from inception to go live,” he said. “Longer term we’ll be looking to train up local delivery teams so that we understand cultural difference and we’ve got the technology to support that; you always need local knowledge.”