ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘facilities-management’ CATEGORY

Recently in the Field Service News Digital Symposium, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, was joined by Mickey Rooney, Program Director JLL in a wide-ranging discussion that touches on a number of key points as the built environment sector faces a major pivot point in its evolution and reflect on the changes this will bring to field service operations on a massive scale.

In this final excerpt from the interview, Rooney outlines the various different considerations that must be made by field service organisations when it comes to outlining an effective roadmap for digital transformation.

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Want to know more? FSN Premium Subscribers and FSN Elite Members can watch this full interview and hours more of in-depth long-form interviews with a series of field service leaders in the Field Service News Digital Symposium. Watch the interview with Mickey Rooney on the button below.

If you are currently on our free forever FSN Standard subscription tier or have yet to join 30,000 of our field service peers as a FSN subscriber you can find out more again on the button below. 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about the Digital Transformation in the field service sector @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about Leadership and Strategy in field service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about JLL/Integral @ https://integral.co.uk/
• Follow JLL/Integral on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/IntegralUKLtd
• Read more about Cognito iQ who are working closely with JLL/Integral @ https://www.cognitoiq.com/
• Connect with Mickey Rooney on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-rooney-0106a161

 

Recently in the Field Service News Digital Symposium, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, was joined by Mickey Rooney, Program Director JLL in a wide-ranging discussion that touches on a number of key points as the built environment sector faces a major pivot point in its evolution and reflect on the changes this will bring to field service operations on a massive scale.

In this excerpt from the full interview, the two discuss the importance of data in the new normal of field service as we begin to fully adopt digital transformation in a period of significant disruption for our sector on a global basis.

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Want to know more? FSN Premium Subscribers and FSN Elite Members can watch this full interview and hours more of in-depth long-form interviews with a series of field service leaders in the Field Service News Digital Symposium. Watch the interview with Mickey Rooney on the button below.

If you are currently on our free forever FSN Standard subscription tier or have yet to join 30,000 of our field service peers as a FSN subscriber you can find out more again on the button below. 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about the Digital Transformation in the field service sector @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about Leadership and Strategy in field service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about JLL/Integral @ https://integral.co.uk/
• Follow JLL/Integral on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/IntegralUKLtd
• Read more about Cognito iQ who are working closely with JLL/Integral @ https://www.cognitoiq.com/
• Connect with Mickey Rooney on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-rooney-0106a161

 

Recently in the Field Service News Digital Symposium, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, was joined by Mickey Rooney, Program Director JLL in a wide-ranging discussion that touches on a number of key points as the built environment sector faces a major pivot point in its evolution and reflect on the changes this will bring to field service operations on a massive scale.

Here, Rooney outlines why he believes that digital transformation has now reached a crucial point that will become the catalyst for significant and widespread change that field service organisations must adapt to and embrace.

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Want to know more? FSN Premium Subscribers and FSN Elite Members can watch this full interview and hours more of in-depth long-form interviews with a series of field service leaders in the Field Service News Digital Symposium. Watch the interview with Mickey Rooney on the button below.

If you are currently on our free forever FSN Standard subscription tier or have yet to join 30,000 of our field service peers as a FSN subscriber you can find out more again on the button below. 

---

Further Reading:

• Read more about the Digital Transformation in the field service sector @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about Leadership and Strategy in field service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about JLL/Integral @ https://integral.co.uk/
• Follow JLL/Integral on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/IntegralUKLtd
• Read more about Cognito iQ who are working closely with JLL/Integral @ https://www.cognitoiq.com/
• Connect with Mickey Rooney on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-rooney-0106a161

 

Recently in the Field Service News Digital Symposium, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, was joined by Mickey Rooney, Program Director JLL in a wide-ranging discussion that touches on a number of key points as the built environment sector faces a major pivot point in its evolution and reflect on the changes this will bring to field service operations on a massive scale.

In this excerpt from that interview, the two discuss exactly how the built environment and importantly how we are using it is changing and what this means for field service companies.

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Want to know more? FSN Premium Subscribers and FSN Elite Members can watch this full interview and hours more of in-depth long-form interviews with a series of field service leaders in the Field Service News Digital Symposium. Watch the interview with Mickey Rooney on the button below.

If you are currently on our free forever FSN Standard subscription tier or have yet to join 30,000 of our field service peers as a FSN subscriber you can find out more again on the button below. 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about the Digital Transformation in the field service sector @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about Leadership and Strategy in field service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about JLL/Integral @ https://integral.co.uk/
• Follow JLL/Integral on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/IntegralUKLtd
• Read more about Cognito iQ who are working closely with JLL/Integral @ https://www.cognitoiq.com/
• Connect with Mickey Rooney on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-rooney-0106a161

 

As we continue our series of videos looking at field service operations and technology within different industry sectors we talk to Mickey Rooney, of JLL about how the evolution of the built environment, how this will impact what service looks like for service providers operating in this area and why CognitoiQ has been a crucial element in JLL's ability to sit at the forefront of innovation and ingenuity in their sector.

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Want to know more? FSN Premium Subscribers and FSN Elite Members can watch the full interview with Mickey Rooney and hours more of in-depth long-form interviews with a series of field service leaders in the Field Service News Digital Symposium. Watch the interview with Mickey Rooney on the button below.

If you are currently on our free forever FSN Standard subscription tier or have yet to join 30,000 of our field service peers as a FSN subscriber you can find out more again on the button below. 

---

Further Reading:

• Read more about the Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ www.fieldservicenews.com/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about Leadership and Strategy in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about JLL/Integral @ integral.co.uk/
• Follow JLL/Integral on Twitter @ twitter.com/IntegralUKLtd
• Read more about Cognito iQ who are working closely with JLL/Integral @ https://www.cognitoiq.com/
• Connect with Mickey Rooney on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-rooney

 

Marc Tatarsky, SVP Marketing, FieldAware offers us an excellent case study of how Meadows Service Group are overcoming the challenges their field service operation were facing...

Those working in facilities and property management today must tackle some seemingly overwhelming challenges that are facing the industry. From managing multiple sites and varied programmes while maintaining service levels and meeting customer expectations. There is compliance with strict regulatory standards to manage while juggling responsibilities around maintaining often ageing assets and infrastructure and facing pressure to cut costs and complete more work with fewer resources.

FieldAware has recently released a new customer case study for Facilities and Property Management, which looks at some of these challenges, how they are being effectively managed and the benefits that are being achieved.

The case study highlights how FieldAware helped Meadows Service Group – a subsidiary of Meadows Office Interiors – to drive revenue growth and deliver their service promise.

 

About the Meadows Service Group...

Founded five decades ago, Meadows Office Interiors – a market-leading contract furniture dealer – creates innovative workspaces that are strategically designed to help customers improve business performance, increase collaboration, realise cost efficiencies and build brand recognition. Recognising a customer need that extends beyond furniture delivery and installation, Meadows Office Interiors created Meadows Service Group to offer ongoing support to their customer base, ultimately maximising the lifetime and integrity of customers’ valuable furniture assets through furniture maintenance programmes, inventory control, asset management and more.

 

Keeping pace with business growth

Meadows Office Interiors has always had a strong focus on their customer-centric service and delivering exceptional value to their clients. Over the years, Meadows had operated well using manual processes to manage its operations, but the business was expanding rapidly and it soon becomes clear that more streamlined ways of working had to be introduced to keep pace with their growth.

“When we launched Meadows Service Group we started out with what now looks like fairly basic processes in the office,” explains Ethan Bajrak, Director of Enterprise Solutions with Meadows Service Group.

“But with the speed of growth we experienced, we quickly realised we had to be more strategic in the way we worked to effectively manage the operational side of the business, which was becoming more and more challenging. We needed to gain the maximum benefit for our clients and our teams, but the processes we used were not visible to everyone and were manually updated outside of our CRM and ERP systems. There was lots of room for error. With the business expanding, we were in real danger of our service levels slipping and missing opportunities. We knew we couldn’t carry on operating that way.”

 

Driving efficiency

The company needed better efficiency and control of the workflow, the crews, and their tools. But their existing CRM /ERP system, NetSuite, was very important to them so they wanted to leverage its use and not change their processes too drastically.

“Our first step was to see what could be done within NetSuite,” explains Ethan. “The next was to look for products that were tightly integrated with the platform. We also worked with our NetSuite integration partner to get their recommendations for products their other customers had proven success with. FieldAware checked all those boxes.”

 

Reaping the benefits

Meadows has been delighted with the improved day-to-day operational management they have seen and through driving the revenue growth of the Meadows Service Group. The company has increased visibility and control as they have been able to standardise their processes and capture all jobs accurately.

They have been able to minimise downtime, while also improving productivity. Everyone has a FieldAware portlet in NetSuite so they can see everything in real-time. Everyone can now see what’s on tap for all the resources, including employees, vehicles and special tools.

On-time arrivals at job sites have increased and a big part of this is that technicians can plan their day in advance and save time by not calling back and forth to the dispatcher to determine where they should report next. The company has much better tracking of technician’s time spent on each job which, in turn, allows them to bill faster and more accurately to clients.

“Meadows Service Group is a newer revenue stream for the company,” commented Ethan “and FieldAware is helping us manage the growth of this division while effectively delivering our service promise to Meadows’ clients.”

 

Translating into true ROI

So as the business continues to expand, the challenges can continue to be addressed and managed.

“Teams have an increased level of confidence in our service team and customers are pleased with the level of communication and timely response. Because of the real-time sign-offs in the field, and the additional documentation provided for each job, the customer invoice payment cycle is faster, which helps our accounting team.”

“Our technicians are more productive because they are equipped with all the information they need. We can handle more jobs and are seeing less errors and repeat trips, which translates into true ROI,” concludes Ethan.

For more information on FieldAware visit www.fieldaware.com

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Arcus FM, a leading facilities management and service provider has successfully deployed Aeromark’s Mobile Document Manager Technology and reported immediate return on investment from day one of implementation.

Document Manager, which is an add-on module for Aeromark’s Optimatics Software product, has transformed the way Arcus conform with health and safety requirements, as management teams have complete control over all documentation such as health and safety manuals, operating procedures, product manuals and more.

“Our previous paper based system was reliant on manual input from field teams, which resulted in a considerable amount of lost time in the field, as documents were not up to date or often misplaced in engineers vans. We needed a system where engineers could quickly access documents on the move and approve automatically”, said Parag Gogate, Head of Programme Management.

Aeromark’s Document Manager is designed for document libraries, accessible by skill set with full change control, allowing administrators to review, approve, modify and distribute documents to the mobile workforce via their mobile device. “This system ensures the most up to date documents are shared across the company; which results in greater efficiency, increased productivity and job satisfaction as technicians are now confident that they have read the correct document”, said Parag.

 

“We find this systematic approach to operating much easier and can effortlessly comply with business processes and health and safety requirements as we now have the ability to undertake a number of checks and if a particular technician hasn’t read a new document, they will not be allowed to proceed until they have. Furthermore this has negated the need to have printed documents and folders on technician vans resulting in cost savings and effort to get them printed and made available”, said Sam Holmes, HSQE Director.

‘‘Aeromark have been really open to working with our needs as a business and have helped us unravel ideas and concepts into workable solutions. We continue to work with them to further develop our dynamic risk assessment process which will enable us to have a solution that integrates operations and safety in a way that doesn’t hinder productivity but ensures consideration of safety is at the core of everything our people do. This can only result in safer working environment for our Colleagues and our Customers’, said Parag.

Arcus FM’s investment in Document Manager has been essential to the efficiency of their service operations which enable the company to improve the service provided to their customers and the data given to their colleagues.

 

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Service management software provider ServicePower recently announced that a professional services company that provides global commercial and residential property services has successfully gone live with ServiceScheduling.

The technology platform, which was delivered on time and on budget, will enable the client to more easily fulfil highly competitive facilities management/service management Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for some of the world’s largest organisations, while at the same time improving both the productivity and control of operations in the field.

ServicePower’s patented scheduling and connected mobile platform enables the client, which has tens of thousands of employees, to optimally schedule field based resources, fully mobilise field based processes and monitor activities in real time, so that services are optimised and SLAs met. The first phase of the service management project went live for UK based field based resources, with subsequent phases planned for France, Brazil, and Mexico.

 

"The property management sector is highly competitive,” said Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower.

 

"With our service management platform, field-based companies know they can build a ‘connected field organisation’. This means business processes are highly automated and visible across the service chain so that they can move faster and offer more favourable service level terms to clients than the competition.  Additionally, with ServicePower’s focus on investment in latest cloud, mobile, analytics and M2M technologies, they know that they can expect flexible, cutting edge technology.”

Recently named by Gartner as a Visionary in its 2014 Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, December 22, 2014 by William McNeill, Michael Maoz and Jason Wong, this latest deal demonstrates how ServicePower’s focus on technological innovation translates into real business benefits for companies operating in the service management sectors. For example, as M2M connected devices continue to penetrate the property sector, ServicePower’s M2M Connected Services and Smart Scheduling Broker service management technologies will allow the client to act proactively with a predictive response to pre-empt equipment failure at properties before they becomes a problem.

As it operates in a highly changeable sector, the configurable nature of ServicePower’s service management technology was deemed important to the client because it will be able to rapidly adjust the platform to internal and external change at minimal cost.

"The selection of SevicePower for another global organisation further underlines our increasing momentum,” continued Martin. “Companies increasingly understand the importance of technology to take their businesses to the next level; they also recognise that with our unique, connected and highly flexible technology, ServicePower is best positioned to support them today and in the future in this objective.”

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Robert Woodhead is an award winning Construction Company operating across the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. Growing steadily since its inception in 1946, Robert Woodhead have developed an impressive customer portfolio and now deliver multi million pound contracts  to some of the largest public and commercial organisations in the UK.

To help meet their rigorous customer service targets, Robert Woodhead decided to develop its service management offering as ‘Woodhead One’ – a specialist operation that delivers responsive repairs and maintenance. As part of the business strategy and to support the expanding repairs and maintenance business, the company knew it would have to optimise its customer contact and scheduling activities if it was to successfully balance excellent customer service with high quality operational performance.

Previously using manual spreadsheets and paper based job allocation, the business wanted a solution that would manage the end-to-end field service operation. To successfully achieve these project goals, Robert Woodhead selected mplsystems to design and deliver a seamless end-to-end field service management solution that would include the helpdesk, scheduling and mobile field service. The solution would need to integrate with existing systems and enhance business processes.

In response to customer demand and to alleviate the volume of service requests going through the helpdesk, mplsystems designed a customised self-service portal that allowed clients to log and track jobs themselves. The portal gave customers full visibility of their service requests and meant they could access the portal at any time without having to call or email the help desk.

Once the request has been made, the helpdesk were able to view real time information on the location and status of mobile field workers and to fully optimise job allocation and instantly send a notification update to the field worker via mplsystems customised mobile app technology.

This solution simplifies the service management process whilst improving efficiencies for both Woodhead One staff and their valued customers. Since implementing the solution Woodhead One have experienced significant business growth and 100% increase in reactive job requests in just two years. The portal now manages more than 75% of these reactive service requests, allowing Woodhead One to reduce their outbound call costs, increase service response times and reduce the admin load on the service helpdesk.

Customers no longer have to call or email the service desk to request a job, they are able to access the portal 24/7 and have full visibility of their request from initiation to completion. Clients can also now effectively measure their job requests through instant reporting from the portal and have full visibility of billing to fully understand associated costs, meaning they too can optimise their business operations.

Stephen Gribby, Repairs and Maintenance Director, Woodhead One commented 

“The team at Woodhead One see our solution from mplsystems as a true differentiator and a feature that is now helping us win new business. We are continuously reviewing our service delivery efforts and the next stage of the project is to encompass our payments system into the portal to achieve a more unified approach across the business”

To find out more you can read the full case study here