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Sub-Zero & Wolf are cooking with gas. The preferred suppliers of kitchen equipment for celebrity chefs James Martin and Heston Blumenthal as well as interior designer/former Dragon’s Den star Kelly Hoppen who are ‘wolfing’ down the rewards of a complete service management revolution. A year ago, they replaced their outmoded, non-web-based software with Tesseract’s Service Centre 5.1 (SC5.1), improving stock control, reducing call times, and cutting out 2 days’ worth of reporting.

The chef’s choice

Sub-Zero & Wolf are longstanding kitchen appliance connoisseurs who supply, install and maintain top-of-the-range cooking and cooling equipment in domestic settings.

Their products are sold through 250 independent dealers across Europe and are the appliances of choice for chefs, designers and celebrities because of their superior performance and exclusive functions. They range from dual fuel ovens to wine storage to coffee machines and many are compatible with home automation systems.

In 2016, Sub-Zero & Wolf marked 70 years of successful trading with a major overhaul of their field service management system.

The old system — too many cooks

Sub-Zero & Wolf’s previous service management system was a case of too many processes, too many people, too many delays, and too little visibility.

The non-web-based software could only manage one stock location at a time and was always a day out; the company could never accurately tell where an item was at any one time. Technicians had no access to live data in the field, only in the office.

This meant they could only get updated callout information and asset data by dialling in to the system, or by speaking to the admin team on the phone or via email. Planned maintenance scheduling was still done using Excel spreadsheets.

“There were a number of factors that led us to replace our service management software,” says Greg O’Sullivan, European Group Service Manager for Sub-Zero & Wolf. “But ultimately it was because our customers expect a first-class service, and we decided that a first-class service management system would help us do that.”

A recipe for success

Sub-Zero & Wolf happened upon Tesseract at the Service Management Expo in Birmingham. They looked at a variety of solutions, but chose Tesseract because it was web-based, cloud-based, and the best fit for their service management needs.

Now, live data is at their fingertips and numerous process delays have been eliminated. If a service call comes in, a suitable technician is dispatched via the Tesseract system rather than a phone call. Planned maintenance work is scheduled using Tesseract’s assisted diary rather than a slew of discrete spreadsheets.

 

While in the field, technicians can log in to the system remotely at any time and view outstanding jobs and parts availability.

They don’t need to rely on a call or email from the office to find out about a site, a customer and the service history of an asset, because all this can be obtained by running simple searches of the Tesseract Customer Assets database.

This smooth, seamless flow of data has cut down both the number and length of calls between the office and Sub-Zero & Wolf’s 114 Europe-wide engineers. It has also improved the engineers’ ability to see patterns of faults with equipment — a crucial facet of good problem management.

Greg O’Sullivan explains, “Tesseract comes with high levels of automation and saves us huge amounts of time. It’s also a much easier process to manage. We had traffic jams on the old system. We’d get job data and parts requests all in one go because it wasn’t live, but now the jobs trickle through at a friendlier pace.”

A major concern for Sub-Zero & Wolf was stock control. Parts are essential to their business and typically very expensive, so keeping track of them is vital. Despite having stock locations all over Europe, their previous system could only monitor one at a time and was always a day out of sync.

With Tesseract’s Parts Centre module, Sub-Zero & Wolf can monitor all stock locations at once, from warehouse to van to customer, with full, real-time visibility of the installation, usage and repair cycle.

One of the biggest efficiency gains for Sub-Zero & Wolf has been in reporting. O’Sullivan says, “Reporting was a laborious manual process at the end of the month and took two days to compile and complete. With Tesseract, we can extract data about assets, parts used and completed jobs at the touch of a button, and complete a report in 30 seconds.”

 

A further benefit for Sub-Zero & Wolf is Tesseract’s ability to integrate with other systems. This is thanks to an application program interface (API) that enables the transfer of information between SC5.1 and any third party software product. “We were already using TomTom WEBFLEET, which tells us where our technicians are,” says O’Sullivan. “Tesseract integrates with this, transmitting address details for service jobs directly to our technicians’ TomToms. Again, this cuts out a manual process and saves us time.”

A taste for more

Sub-Zero & Wolf are looking to add the Remote Customer Access (RCA) function of SC5.1 to their portfolio of service management modules. At present, dealers and end-user customers have to phone Sub-Zero & Wolf if an equipment fault occurs, and cannot see what’s happening when a job is actioned. RCA allows customers to log in to SC5.1 via a web browser and notify Sub-Zero & Wolf of a problem more quickly, easily and simply than a phone call.

Customers can also monitor progress, move assets, raise sales orders and run reports.

“We’re keen to add Remote Customer Access in the near future to make life easier for our customers,” says O’Sullivan. “What’s great about this is that Tesseract can tailor the visibility of the platform at different levels, simply by changing the permissions. This means our dealers can see data for their customers, but our end-user customers will only see the data that is relevant to them.”

 

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In 2015, Espresso Service Ltd woke up and smelled ‘connected’ coffee. By implementing Tesseract’s cloud-based service management software, it entered the realm of the smart coffeemaker and the Internet of Things, bolstering its USPs and improving its service to customers.

Backed by over 25 years in the coffee industry, Espresso Service manages and maintains all types and brands of coffee machines. It does this via a nationwide network of engineers who really know their beans.

Before Tesseract, the company’s service management system was based around a less flexible, server-based, non-specialised bolt-on to an accountancy package. This was no longer up to task, so Espresso Service looked to the cloud.

Head in the cloud

Espresso Service opted for a software-as-a-service system, aka SaaS. In other words, a system that is hosted in the cloud and accessible via the internet. The company wanted to avoid the hefty capital costs involved with installing software on its servers, and instead pay an ongoing subscription fee. It also wanted access to software that was maintained by the provider and always kept up to date. This led it to Tesseract.

Daniel Sewell, Chief Operating Officer for Espresso Service, explains, “In the end, the choice was down to two companies. Tesseract came out on top for three main reasons. Firstly, the system is web-based, which means our engineers can access it anywhere. Secondly, we get free upgrades and any platform developments for one customer are shared to all. The third reason is Kevin McNally, one of Tesseract’s managers. As opposed to a typical salesman just interested in a deal, Kevin was thoroughly genuine and showed a real and keen interest in our business. He still does.”

 

The Internet of (Coffee) Things

The Tesseract system is able to communicate directly with some of the coffee machines Espresso Service is contracted to maintain. These machines contain a modem with a SIM card, feeding data to the Tesseract system by means of the internet. This could be asset history or maintenance alerts, i.e. the machine has run out of milk or coffee, or needs a repair.

This telemetry prompts Espresso Service to take action and, if necessary, schedule a maintenance visit — without its customers having to do anything. Daniel Sewell says, “On average 5,000 pieces of information a day are transmitted to the Tesseract system. This ability to monitor equipment remotely through Tesseract has not just revolutionised the way Espresso Service operates; it’s also improved the performance of our customers. Their need to keep coffee flowing and minimise equipment downtime is served by us providing them with a more responsive service.”

The perfect blend

Espresso Service utilises the full suite of services offered by Tesseract’s flagship product, Service Centre 5.1 (SC5.1), including Call Control, Customer Assets, Parts Centre, Remote Engineer Access and Remote Customer Access.

While SC5.1 is an out-of-the-box platform, Tesseract does its best to tailor and adapt it. In this case, it has created an interface with Espresso Service’s accounting software, as well as between Parts Centre and the company’s stock partner. This enables Espresso Service to have full visibility and control of the movement of stock even though a separate company manages it.

Tesseract and Espresso Service also worked together to enhance SC5.1’s stock-take functionality, streamlining what used to be a manual process. In due course, Espresso Service will incorporate Tesseract’s Diary Assist, an automated scheduling service capable of saving companies 3-4 hours a day of manual manipulation by assigning calls to engineers.

 

What’s clear is that Tesseract and Espresso Service represent a strong, thriving partnership, one that has continued to flourish in the short time since implementation. Daniel Sewell explains, “Tesseract has given us a new USP. When we approach sales prospects, we proclaim the virtues of the Tesseract system, and how much it will make their lives easier and service better. We also recommend the platform to other companies in our industry. In particular, we partnered with an ROI firm to found a company called Espresso Service Ireland Technical Ltd, and got them set up on the Tesseract system. That’s how much we believe in it.”

 

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Manitowoc Foodservice UK have been relying on the service management software supplied by Tesseract for 20 years. Now they have decided to further automate their systems with one of Tesseract’s most useful tools – Diary Assist.

With customers like Debenhams, Wetherspoons and the Ministry of Defence, Manitowoc are the world leaders in manufacturing, supplying and maintaining cutting edge kitchen equipment, as well as designing and refitting kitchens.

From ovens, grills, fryers and steamers, to ice machines, refrigerators and beer coolers, Manitowoc produce equipment for numerous renowned and award-winning catering industry brands. These include Garland, Frymaster, Convotherm and Merrychef – the world’s number one designer and supplier of pioneering accelerated cooking systems.

More than 80,000 Merrychef ovens are in use around the world. Frymaster, another of Manitowoc’s leading brands, is a familiar name in catering establishments worldwide, with sales and service capabilities in over 100 countries. Manitowoc employ a consistent commitment to research and development and innovation-led strategies and boast highly advanced manufacturing facilities.

 

With keen eyes for revolutionary technology and efficiency and smooth operation in even the busiest kitchens, Manitowoc are not only concerned with food facilities, but with food itself. Their global team of development chefs can help venues compile creative, innovative menus to suit their customer base and achieve greater success, drawing on their immeasurable experience of the catering industry.

It’s this desire to make their customers’ establishments better and more efficient that sets Manitowoc apart from other food service companies.

No room for error

Manitowoc’s high status and market-leading position mean they cannot afford to let any of their customers down. This is why, 20 years ago, they turned to Tesseract for help in the revolution and modernisation of their service management.

For all of their kitchen installations, Manitowoc have a committed team of engineers who carry out planned and reactive maintenance. Manitowoc use Tesseract to log calls from customers when a piece of equipment incurs a fault, as well as assigning jobs to the engineers, invoicing, parts ordering and reporting. Service requests are transmitted to engineers’ tablet devices using Tesseract’s Remote Engineer Access technology.

Engineers close down jobs on their tablets, at which point the information is transmitted back to Manitowoc instantaneously. Finally, all of Manitowoc’s service activities can be monitored using Tesseract’s fully customisable Crystal Reports, which allow Manitowoc to design and schedule any report they want at any time of day or night. This makes for much better ownership of data.

 

However, choosing which engineers to deploy for both planned maintenance work and reactive tasks was always done manually. Now, in order to further automate their systems, improve efficiency and save huge amounts of time, Manitowoc have integrated Tesseract’s Diary Assist software for both planned and reactive maintenance tasks.

Before the integration of Diary Assist

Manitowoc used to rely totally on a manual system for scheduling engineers for reactive jobs and diarising them for planned maintenance tasks. They used mapping software such as AA Route Planner and the now discontinued Microsoft MapPoint and would assign particular engineers based on location, skill set and fair division of work.

Manitowoc’s manual process for deployment not only took a lot of time, much more than an automated process would, but it also introduced a human element to the decision-making that wasn’t always consistent.

“Before Diary Assist, the deployment of our engineers relied on human intervention and scheduling typically consumed 3 – 4 hours a day,” says Manitowoc. “We had staff trying to ensure that the division of work was fair according to engineers’ skill set and geographical location. A side effect of this was that sometimes it would be unfair and inconsistent.”

How has Diary Assist changed things for Manitowoc?

Diary Assist is a dynamic, centrally hosted web service for call optimisation. It’s designed to handle both planned appointments and reactive service calls and is capable of scheduling 200 hundred calls in just 20 minutes.

The software allocates jobs to engineers based on their skill sets, availability, travel time, work time and shift patterns, as well as call response time and customer site cover times. Manitowoc used to have staff making evaluative decisions about which engineers were most appropriate to allocate; now an automated program does it for them.

Manitowoc says, “We are already seeing the long-term benefits of using Diary Assist. The service provides consistent logic to our scheduling process and saves us 3 – 4 hours a day of manual manipulation, whilst eliminating the potential for human error.”

 

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Tesseract’s service management software is about to be put to extremely good use. BCAS Biomedical Services Ltd (BCAS Biomed) will use it to more effectively manage thousands of life-critical devices for hospitals, healthcare professionals and the emergency services.

BCAS Biomed is a leading UK provider of Managed Equipment Services for the medical sector, maintaining everything from ventilators to defibrillators to ultrasound machines. Its current medical-sector-specific management software tells BCAS Biomed what assets need servicing and when, and also manages the scheduling. However, BCAS Biomed’s recent growth has highlighted some limitations, as well as the need for a mobile working solution for the field service engineering team.

“With some of our hospital contracts, we’re literally managing thousands of assets,” says Steve Dampier, Operations Director for BCAS Biomed. “Because these are life-critical devices, compliance is of the utmost importance. We chose Tesseract because their asset management software will help us track the history of the equipment more efficiently. They also offer local support, which is really useful for us.”

 

BCAS Biomed will be incorporating Tesseract’s Diary Assist and Remote Engineer Access (REA) modules in an effort to cut out delays, improve visibility and go paperless. Diary Assist will be used to schedule planned maintenance, replacing the company’s manual diary. REA will allow engineers to create and submit digital worksheets in real-time, rather than having to handwrite service reports and post them in.

Steve says, “Tesseract has much more functionality and longevity than the sector-specific system we have now. There are so many layers to the Tesseract system, so much scope for flexibility. It’s basically future-proof.”

 

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Sterilizer specialist ESTS is about to usher in a new era of fast, paperless servicing, courtesy of Tesseract’s field service software.

ESTS is the brains behind Logiclave, a leading brand of sterilization devices, including autoclaves, steam sterilizers and washer disinfectors. ESTS designs and manufactures the devices for hospitals, universities, pharmaceutical companies and the biotechnology sector, and makes sure all are properly and regularly maintained under service contracts.

At present, ESTS uses a basic software system to manage its service activities. However, it’s simply a diary and a database, lacking any intuitive call control or dispatch functions, asset management tools or mobile working solutions. The company also uses a separate software system for stock control.

“Our processes are quite labour-intensive,” says David Hawtin, Director at ESTS. “Our engineers have to handwrite service sheets and post or hand-deliver them to the office. Then our admin team has to process them and submit paper invoices to our accounts department. Engineers are dispatched by email or telephone. And with parts, engineers call our storeman and he orders them in. Tesseract is going to transform all of this.”

 

Tesseract’s service management software will provide ESTS with automatic dispatch, stock control, automated invoicing, asset management and, most importantly, a mobile field service solution for the engineers. This will eliminate numerous manual processes and the need for copious paperwork.

ESTS remembered Tesseract after seeing a demonstration of the software at a trade show a few years ago. Hawtin explains, “We saw a demonstration of two systems, but decided to go with Tesseract for two reasons. Tesseract offered a cloud-based version, and the system worked on both android and iOS devices. The other system lacked these features.”

ESTS will soon be implementing the cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) version of Tesseract’s Service Centre 5.1 (SC5.1). Hawtin says, “The fact that Tesseract offers a SaaS version of SC5.1 made it more accessible to us. It means we don’t need to upgrade our server to implement it, and it’s less of a burden on us because Tesseract maintains it in-house.”

 

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Fire protection specialists Surefire have found a ‘surefire’ solution to their service management software needs: Tesseract...

Surefire Services is a UK company that sells, installs and maintains fire protection systems, including fire alarms, gas suppression and sprinkler systems, extinguishers and dry risers. Presently, its sales, installations and maintenance departments rely on three separate management systems involving basic software and spreadsheets. The company has decided it’s time to move away from paper, update its software and bring its three departments under one umbrella.

“Frustration is one of our main motivators for changing,” says Marcus Kemp, Service Director for Surefire. “Our current system is too basic and we struggle with reporting as the software keeps failing. We are implementing Tesseract so we can speed everything up, improve cash flow and provide a better service to our clients.”

 

Surefire has opted for the cloud-based SaaS version of Tesseract’s service management software for two reasons. First, the SaaS version is managed in-house by Tesseract, which means instantaneous fixes and upgrades. Second, it keeps space free on Surefire’s server, which is home to a great deal of data.

“The reason we chose Tesseract is because their software is easy to use and reasonably priced,” says Kemp. “They also offer a sales module—the other companies we looked at didn’t. This will allow us to bring our three departments under one system, ensuring faster processes and a better flow of data.”

The plan is to launch Tesseract within the maintenance department first, followed by installations and then sales. Tablet devices will be rolled out to Surefire’s engineering team, eliminating the need for paper timesheets, worksheets and invoices and allowing Surefire to receive real-time, instantaneous data about each job. Staff will also be able to create Key Performance Indicator Reports, something they cannot do currently.

 

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Kris Oldland talks exclusively to Pål M. Rødseth, CEO Evatic as they announce the acquisition of Tesseract Service Management...

Evatic AS, a leading software vendor within Service Management, have acquired Cranbox Ltd in the UK, the owner of the Tesseract service  management software product trading under the name Tesseract.

Together Evatic and Tesseract will complement each other’s product portfolio and strengthen the product offering within the service management field in the market. Tesseract has its main office in High Wycombe just outside London and an office in Reston, Virginia in the US.

“We believe that the two organisations will complement each other both when it comes to products, industries and geographies”

“We are extremely happy to add Tesseract to our product family” says Pål M. Rødseth, CEO of Evatic. “We have known Colin and his team for years and we believe that the two organisations will complement each other both when it comes  to products, industries and geographies. The Tesseract solution with a cloud based platform will make a great addition to the Evatic software suit.”

 

“I believe that Tesseract are in the best hands going forward”, says Colin Brown, founder and CEO of Tesseract.

“With more than 150 customers in a wide range of industries, there is very little overlap with Evatic both when it comes to customer industries and geographies, and I am confident that the product and the customers will continue to thrive under the Evatic ownership”.

Evatic is a leading European service management software company with the head office in Trondheim, Norway and offices in Sweden, Germany, France, Poland and Singapore.

With a global reach and more than 300 customers in 30+ countries Evatic offers a broad product suit for companies that need to make their services profitable. Evatic is a private company owned by the founders and Viking Venture.

Speaking exclusively to Field Service News on the day of the announcement Rødseth commented “We have known Colin for a good number of years and we were actually having the same discussion about four years ago - before I joined Evatic. But somehow those discussions didn’t end in a conclusion, so we picked up the ball again about six or seven months ago and had a long and fruitful discussion that ended up in Evatic acquiring Tesseract - and we are really delighted with that.”

From an outside perspective there seems to be a lot of synergy between the two companies with each being able to fill gaps in the others markets and solutions. Something that Rødseth was keen to highlight.

“There really is a complimentary side to this, we view the UK as a really interesting market,” he began.

Currently in Evatic we are focussing our business around the copier/print industry - that’s where we have our main customers and we have a system that offers a really specialist contract management tool, which is great for advanced or complicated contracts that a lot of the copy/print guys do. So we have a great system for them.”

“However, we are not as good in the generalist service management solutions, for example repair centres and stock management solutions - that is where Tesseract fits into the picture.”

In terms of how the company focus will be split, it does indeed seem that the two different products, Tesseract and Evatic will live alongside each other as complimentary but distinctly separate entities.

 

“We now see this as one company with two different products, one being the Evatic product and one being the Tesseract product.” He added.

“I think we will continue to build the Evatic solution to tailor to industries that require really, really complex contract management solutions - and the key vertical for us there is the copy/print industry.”

Rødseth explained “However, we do have some customers outside of this sector and we are already actively looking at if we can move them over to the Tesseract solution.”

“A lot of the smaller customers that we have would benefit from running a Cloud solution with Tesseract so we hope to have some customer synergies from that. However, the primary reason for the acquisition was geographical expansion into the UK and the US.”

“Where we have our customers today is mainly in the Nordics and we also have offices in Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and Singapore but for whatever reason we have never had a strong presence in the UK. We now hope to build the Evatic brand in the UK now that we have a presence there via Tesseract and similarly we hope to be able to bring Tesseract to the European regions where Evatic is already strong.”

“So hopefully quite soon our sales guys will open their jackets and there’s not only an Evatic or Tesseract logo there but there is both.”

And it seems it will be business as normal for both companies in the short to medium term as Rødseth alluded to there being no loss of the newly acquired Tesseract band.

“The Tesseract brand has been over 30 years in the market it is a very strong brand so we will continue to keep that for the Service Centre and build on that and we will keep the Evatic brand for the document management vertical” he said.

What is clear is that there is a great deal of respect between the two parties, especially from Evatic towards not only the heritage of the Tesseract brand but also towards industry veteran Brown who will be stepping down from his role as MD but will remain working with Evatic in a consultancy role.

“Of course it is not going to be easy to filling the shoes of an industry veteran like Colin, but we will do our best to keep up innovating with Tesseract as we’ve done with Evatic as well.”

“We have 20 + people here that all have experience with the product and there is deep knowledge here within the organisation - we are hopeful towards a very positive future for both Tesseract and Evatic following this change.”

 

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Intelligent traffic signs provider, Swarco Traffic Ltd, is saying good riddance to whiteboards and complex Excel spreadsheets...

The company is implementing SC5.1, the latest iteration of Tesseract’s service management software, in a bid to revolutionise its asset and field service management and boost efficiency.

Swarco is responsible for keeping drivers informed and traffic moving, by way of smart parking guidance signs, directional signs, speed warning signs and smart motorway information boards. Swarco’s tailor-made traffic management solutions are used by city centres and motorways nationwide, including major shopping centres like Westfield in London and the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

With more than ten thousand signs across the UK, Swarco relies on a hardworking team of engineers to maintain the signs and remedy faults. At present, Swarco has dedicated staff using whiteboards and an Excel planner to manage its engineers’ schedules and ensure that sign maintenance and repairs are carried out efficiently and on time. However, the process is manual and time-consuming.

 

The other problem is that Swarco does not always have access to GPS coordinates for each sign, which leads to difficulties directing engineers to the exact location of the equipment.

“Tesseract is going to give us automation, immediacy and visibility,” says Berony Abraham, Operations Director for Swarco. “The new system will automatically allocate work according to skill set and location, direct engineers to exactly the right place using GPS, and let our customers log in and report faults. Several of our largest clients have already expressed interest in this.”

Swarco looked at a variety of different solutions before selecting Tesseract. “We went with Tesseract because it’s UK-based, really simple and easy to use, and the staff are so helpful,” says Berony. “It’s also more or less off-the-shelf. In other words, you can use it straight away without having to spend ages customising it.”

 

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Evatic AS, a leading software vendor within Service Management, have acquired Cranbox Ltd in the UK, the owner of the Tesseract service management software product trading under the name Tesseract.

Together Evatic and Tesseract will complement each other’s product portfolio and strengthen the product offering within the service management field in the market. Tesseract has its main office in High Wycombe just outside London and an office in Reston, Virginia in the US.

“We are extremely happy to add Tesseract to our product family” says Pål M. Rødseth, CEO of Evatic. “We have known Colin and his team for years and we believe that the two organisations will complement each other both when it comes to products, industries and geographies. The Tesseract solution with a cloud based platform will make a great addition to the Evatic software suit.”

 

“I believe that Tesseract are in the best hands going forward”, says Colin Brown, founder and CEO of Tesseract. “With more than 150 customers in a wide range of industries, there is very little overlap with Evatic both when it comes to customer industries and geographies, and I am confident that the product and the customers will continue to thrive under the Evatic ownership”.

Evatic is a leading European service management software company with the head office in Trondheim, Norway and offices in Sweden, Germany, France, Poland and Singapore.

With a global reach and more than 300 customers in 30+ countries Evatic offers a broad product suit for companies that need to make their services profitable. Evatic is a private company owned by the founders and Viking Venture.

 

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