How do you keep an area that is 800,000 m3, including over 17,000 assets – from climate control installations and sliding doors to escalators and baggage conveyors – operating at peak performance around the clock? In 2018 BAM Bouw en Techniek was awarded the tender for the maintenance of Terminal 3 at Schiphol Airport, not least due to their vision for connected field service. Anouk Schrauwen, IT Business Partner at BAM Construction and Engineering Netherlands, describes this challenging project and how they decided to use HSO’s field service solution.  

Anouk Schrauwen: “BAM wants to offer service excellence to its customers, combined with an innovative range of services and dedicated, motivated employees, to increase customer satisfaction and build long-term customer relations. To make this ambition a fact, we needed a field service platform that would completely support our strategy, cover all customer-related processes, and use advanced digital technologies as much as possible. With that goal in mind, we started the project UP! Field Service: the implementation of a new field service platform that is data-driven and facilitates ‘one way of working’.” 

A cloud-based, future-proof field service platform  

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales was already implemented at BAM. HSO was selected to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service. Anouk: “We chose HSO because of their proven track record in Field Service in the building and construction sector. Above all, we were looking for a solution that would be more flexible than the maintenance tools that we were already using. A field service platform that uses IoT and is future-proof. The solution offered by HSO provided the best alignment with our processes.” 

As managing director of HSO CRM Solutions, Henk-Jan van de Beek was closely involved in the implementation of the solution. Henk-Jan: “HSO has extensive experience in field services and we know all the processes and issues that technical service providers struggle with. HSO is one of the few Microsoft Solution Integrators able to implement the complete maintenance cycle at customer locations.” 

The integration of Field Service alongside purchasing and finance played a key role for BAM in selecting this solution. Henk-Jan: In many cases, BAM works with multiple-service contracts, involving multiple departments, which are quite complex to manage effectively. In our Field Service solution, all of that has been covered. The Field Service app is completely integrated with planning and financial processes. That is what makes this solution so comprehensive. Our field service platform covers the entire chain: from CRM (the sales funnel) to the actual assignment. If something breaks or malfunctions, a work order is created automatically. Once the malfunction is resolved and the fix is confirmed, then the financial department receives an update about it. You maintain a complete overview of your customer’s activities.” 

“We also help our customers with ‘connected scenarios’. This means that we use signals from IoT devices to check if something is wrong, and identify the problem. Based on that a work order can be generated – fully automatically – and an engineer can be scheduled to solve the problem. At the same time, the data that we generate also helps us make better predictions for where preventative maintenance will be needed, avoiding disruptions that affect the user wherever possible. In other words: a frictionless experience.” 

 A multi-platform solution in which the BAM service engineers receive their work orders on their tablets and have real-time access to all the information the need to do the job.  

Data-driven solution 

On 1 April 2019, the first service team went live at Schiphol Airport. There are approximately 200 users in total by now, including planners and service engineers, working with Dynamics 365 for Field Service on a daily basis. The total number of users will increase at the start of next year to about 1,500 users, who will constantly add, analyse and interact with data. Eventually, the field service platform will be rolled out internationally.  

All the financial and back-office processes at BAM are managed in SAP. For all sales and customer-related processes, BAM relies on Microsoft technology: Dynamics 365 for Sales, Field Service, BI and IoT technology, built on Azure IaaS and Azure PaaS.  

Henk-Jan: “This project was a fairly complex undertaking in terms of integration and vast quantities of data and data sources. But that data is crucial, since it plays a key role in the added value of the solution.” 

Anouk: “In the solution, we integrate the data from Schiphol with our own data. This combination provides us with a lot of information about all the assets that we need to maintain. This will help us predict maintenance of our assets more and more accurately.”  

People are ultimately responsible for a successful change  

The new way of working and the transformation of the BAM organisation, which is inextricably linked to the strategy of service excellence, have actually been even more challenging than the technological aspects. Anouk: “We request everyone on the work force, from planners to engineers, to use a new, uniform way of working, based on standard work processes. Replacing the system is only the first step in realising our strategic objectives. That demands a change in our organisation and our work culture, which we are fully committed to and investing in. And so far, the results have been very positive!” 

HSO Advanced Field Service for the challenges of tomorrow   

HSO and Microsoft are continuing to invest in their field service platform. We are attracting new customers, recruiting and training new people and embracing new technology, integrating big data and analytics into our Field Service practice. Would you like to know more about the BAM solution and the possibilities that our Advanced Field Service solution offers for your company? Feel free to contact us!  

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