ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘field-service-management-systems’ CATEGORY
Apr 21, 2020 • Features • return on investment • Video • field service • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • HSO
In the final instalment of this series Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Shilen Khimani, HSO about how the various areas discussed in this video series can be brought together to put a cohesive argument for investment in upgrading or replacing your field service management systems to your board.
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Apr 16, 2020 • Features • return on investment • Video • field service • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • HSO
In the fifth part of this series, we discuss how whilst in the past upgrading to a modern field service management system may have offered you a competitive advantage, in today's connected world not doing so can place your organisation at a significant competitive disadvantage...
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Apr 09, 2020 • Features • return on investment • Video • field service • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • HSO
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Apr 01, 2020 • Features • return on investment • Video • field service • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • HSO
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Mar 26, 2020 • Features • return on investment • Video • field service • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • HSO
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Mar 19, 2020 • Features • return on investment • Video • field service • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • HSO
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Jul 04, 2018 • News • Coresystems • manuel grenacher • Orchard Machinery Corporation • Brian Kaufman • Farming • field service management • Field Service Management Systems • SAP • Software and Apps
Coresystems, a leading provider of cloud-based field service and workforce management software for mid-sized and large enterprises’ field service organizations, today announced that Orchard Machinery Corporation (OMC) is using Coresystems’ platform...
Coresystems, a leading provider of cloud-based field service and workforce management software for mid-sized and large enterprises’ field service organizations, today announced that Orchard Machinery Corporation (OMC) is using Coresystems’ platform to support OMC’s field service operations. OMC is the world leader in orchard harvesting equipment, using its patented Shakermaker machines to harvest fruits and nuts for worldwide distribution.
OMC was created from a dire need to automate the extreme labour required to pick fruits and nuts by hand. As OMC’s Shakermaker deployments and operations expanded, it ran into similar obstacles of suboptimal field service productivity. During rotating shifts from early mornings to late nights, OMC’s field service technicians would fill out paperwork to document service projects and request additional parts. However, the paperwork would typically take up to three days to process, which was often too late to restock the field service technicians’ trucks before the next appointment.
OMC turned to Coresystems to automate and accelerate its field service operations, and thus improve productivity for its travelling technicians. Coresystems’ platform provides OMC with a manufacturing and enterprise resourcing planning (MRP/ERP) solution to make time-intensive paperwork obsolete, fully incorporating existing field service processes into mobile phone and tablet devices. With the mobile platform, OMC’s technicians' input project updates and part requests in real-time. This not only streamlines inventory management for OMC’s in-office service managers, enabling them to focus on customer service within the shop, but it also provides OMC’s upper management valuable insights of the number of service calls fulfilled most profitable customer integrations and more.
Between manually inputting paperwork and waiting for requests for restocked parts, our field service operations ended up being an all-hands-on-deck effort“Previously, OMC’s field service operations revolved heavily around paperwork – and the rate at which we were able to process it. Between manually inputting paperwork and waiting for requests for restocked parts, our field service operations ended up being an all-hands-on-deck effort,” said Brian Kaufman, Parts Manager, Orchard Machinery Corporation. “With Coresystems, we are able to automate and streamline our field service processes, optimizing our in-field technicians’ workdays and freeing up in-office service managers to focus on driving business goals elsewhere. We are now much better equipped to ensure the thousands of deployed Shakermaker machines are in prime condition to produce bountiful harvest seasons worldwide.”
OMC selected Coresystems for the customization capabilities of its platform, as well as its ability to address OMC’s needs that are highly specific to the agricultural industry. OMC’s ERP systems use unique terminology, to which Coresystems can translate generic field service descriptions for various assets.
“While the agriculture industry is built upon a history of physical, manual labour, innovators such as OMC are discovering new methods of automating and accelerating the industry – but they require the back-end infrastructure to enable them to do so,” said Manuel Grenacher, CEO of Coresystems. “By offering OMC a paperless, mobile solution, Coresystems addresses the specific needs of harvesting operations and elevates them to the real-time pace of technology today.”
OMC plans to expand the Coresystems implementation to additional service centres, extending the reach of its field service offerings. OMC also envisions incorporating third-party integration with customers and dealers to further streamline inventory management, sales orders and requests for parts.
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Nov 04, 2016 • Features • Evatic • Field Service Management Systems • Interview • Service Management • Software and Apps • Asolvi
Kris Oldland talks exclusively to Pål M. Rødseth, CEO Evatic as they announce the acquisition of Tesseract Service Management...
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 believe that the two organisations will complement each other both when it comes to products, industries and geographies
“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.”
We now see this as one company with two different products, one being the Evatic product and one being the Tesseract product.
“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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Jul 01, 2016 • Features • Management • management • Outsorucing • Field Service Management Systems
Adapting to rapidly changing technology is key to keeping up with – or even outrunning – competition. But sometimes internal staff don’t have the time or skills to manage complex IT infrastructure of office technology, making it necessary to seek...
Adapting to rapidly changing technology is key to keeping up with – or even outrunning – competition. But sometimes internal staff don’t have the time or skills to manage complex IT infrastructure of office technology, making it necessary to seek out a supplement to your business’ IT department. Matt Kingswood, Head of IT Specialists UK (ITS) explains more..
The good news is there are a number of vendors that are keen to take the pressure off your internal IT staff by offering field service, where the vendor handles key parts of your on-site IT needs, such as hardware repairs or desktop and server support. Called managed service providers (MSPs), these vendors specialise in managing key pieces of their clients’ IT infrastructure. The challenge is knowing what to look for when working with an MSP to build an effective field service strategy. As head of nationwide managed service provider IT Specialists (ITS), I’ve found the following five tips to be the most helpful.
1. Find a provider with high service levels.
In today’s on-demand culture, your customers expect immediate service and don’t tolerate downtime. If broken hardware would prevent you from providing an expected level of service, you need to
The last thing you want is to have to wait for the field engineer to order spare parts before they can repair the equipment."
Of course, one of the best ways to gauge the MSP’s commitment to quality service is to ask to see the provider’s service level agreement (SLA). The SLA states that the vendor will provide services measured by predefined, quantifiable metrics. If the vendor can’t fulfil these obligations, the SLA gives you recourse.
2, Decide on the need for preventative services.
Even better than achieving a first-time fix is preventing a system malfunction in the first place. This is particularly important if your business has recovery time objectives to meet for business continuity and disaster recovery purposes. How will the MSP you’re considering prevent system errors?
At ITS, for example, we use N-able to manage printers for Howden’s Joinery, a UK-based manufacturer and supplier of kitchens and joinery products. Previously, Howden’s printers were not networked, consumables were unmonitored, supplies replenishment was not automated, and paper use was not cost-effective. Having implemented monitoring software (after networking the printers), we are now able to address any issues with the printers and manage the supply of consumables.
3. Select a partner that adapts to technology changes.
“Innovate or die” is a mantra technology companies love to repeat, but it applies to virtually any business. In the next 20 years, says futurist Ray Kurzweil, technology will change so drastically that it will pale in comparison to the previous 20 years.
If your business is going to keep up, you need to work with a forward-thinking MSP that keeps pace with technology and is able to meet your growing business’s needs.
For an example of how an MSP can identify and respond to a client’s needs, consider our client Baxter Freight. Baxter wanted us to not only provide new hardware and build a network but also brainstorm ways to future-proof their business. The plans had to benefit both ITS and Baxter, with products that were cost-effective for both businesses. Working together, the ITS team created a strategy for improving Baxter’s business resilience. The strategy included plans to adopt larger products, such as a managed cloud-based disaster recovery as a service platform, as the business became more established.
4. Make regulatory compliance a priority.
Regulatory compliance is a pressing concern across multiple industries. If your organisation is in a regulated industry, you need to work with an MSP that can help you adhere to the appropriate regulations – especially if engineers will be working on hardware containing confidential data.
Ask if the MSP has adopted a business continuity standard or undergone a third-party accreditation process to achieve a certification. Examples of these certifications include ISO 9001 (for quality management systems) and ISO 27001 (for information security management systems).
5. Ensure you don’t void your hardware warranties.
If an unqualified engineer works on your hardware, you risk voiding your hardware warranties. Keep your warranties intact by verifying your MSP’s field engineers are fully qualified to repair equipment from an array of manufacturers. Because technology is changing, it’s also a good idea to ask whether the MSP invests in ongoing training and additional certifications for its engineers.
There’s no doubt that the field service options on the market are overwhelming. However, if you follow these five tips when building your outsourced field management strategy, you can successfully develop an effective outsourced field service strategy. You’ll not only take the pressure off your internal staff but also gain the edge over your competitors.
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd, an independent publisher whose sole focus is on the field service sector. As such our entire resources are focused on helping drive the field service sector forwards and aiming to best serve our industry through honest, incisive and innovative media coverage of the global field service sector.
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