SDIS 50 uses Maarch Courrier in response to COVID-19

The Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of the Manche (SDIS 50) was created in 1955, but has existed in its current form since January 1, 2000, following the law known as the « departmentalization » law.

About the SDIS

SDIS 50 is a public administrative establishment. This status grants it budgetary management autonomy, allowing it to act legally as a distinct legal entity.

The departmental director of the SDIS heads the Departmental Corps, which brings together professional and volunteer firefighters. Administrative, technical, and specialized staff are also part of the departmental service.

The establishment operates under the administrative and financial authority of the Chairman of the Board of Directors (the President of the Departmental Council or their representative), and under the authority of the mayors or the Prefect for operational deployment. The Board of Directors is made up of 22 members elected from among departmental councillors, the presidents of Public Establishments for Inter-Municipal Cooperation (EPCI), and mayors.

The missions of SDIS 50 are as follows:

• Fire prevention, protection, and firefighting,
• Prevention and assessment of civil safety risks,
• Preparation of safeguard measures and organization of rescue resources,
• Protection of people, property, and the environment,
• Emergency assistance to victims of accidents, disasters, or catastrophes, including their evacuation.

Current situation

SDIS 50 wanted to modernize its GEC (mail management system) in order to:

• Prepare and process incoming and outgoing mail electronically, following a process for tracking review and response,
• Position the mail processing chain as a critical link in communication between citizens and services,
• Guarantee traceability of mail (routing, response time, search methods, etc.)
• Modernize services by prioritizing digitization,
• Build a contact database for statistics and communication.

Maarch Courrier was chosen in the context of aligning practices and tools with the Departmental Council, the supervisory authority, which has been using the solution for several years.

Project timeline

The project began in June 2019, and version 19.04 of Maarch Courrier was deployed. Configuration started around August 2019, and the go-live took place on February 19, 2020.

The « Steering and Continuous Improvement » group was tasked with the rollout. It was carried out by a five-person project team through three consecutive phases:

• Application configuration: analysis of the organization and translating it into the configuration — 6 days of support from Maarch consultants were devoted to this configuration phase, including skills transfer and workflow reliability testing.
• Staff training: 120 users were trained internally by members of the project team, in 3.5-hour sessions with 5 to 10 participants each; training took place between early December and mid-January.
• Implementation support: going into production requires daily hands-on support to ensure proper use and the adoption of best practices.

Throughout these three phases, the Maarch Courrier teams were by the SDIS’s side, who came to appreciate

• A tight-knit team, ensuring all contacts had a solid understanding of the project,
• Regular phone availability, in addition to on-site days at the SDIS,
• Technical expertise that helped identify the configuration solutions best suited to our operational constraints

It should be noted that the lockdown measures introduced from March 17 (four weeks after going live) and the shift to remote work for the establishment’s administrative staff accelerated the integration of the tool into our practices.

A tool suited to remote work

SDIS 50 is planning to migrate to version 20.03 at the end of 2020 to benefit, in particular, from the ergonomic improvements of the new interface and the announced configuration flexibility.

“Conceived in 2019 as part of the establishment’s planned development, the rollout of Maarch Courrier took place just before the lockdown period linked to the COVID-19 health crisis.

The solution made it possible to quickly and easily shift the SDIS’s administrative activity from its usual in-person mode to a remote-work mode that had not existed until then.

Even under the specific conditions inherent to this exceptional situation, staff quickly got to grips with the solution’s features, and all users — from staff in various departments up to senior management — were able to appreciate both the smoothness and the reliability of the product.”

Commandant Patrick AUROUSSEAU
Deputy Head of the Steering and Continuous Improvement Group
Head of Data Management