In the first in a new series of videos where we look at field service operations and technology within different industry sectors we talk to Gary Milne, of Healthcare at Home about the important work they undertake, how that has changed since the pandemic and why dynamic scheduling engine Fast Lean Smart (FLS) has been a crucial element in their ability to meet customer demands and plan for expansion

FLS - FAST LEAN SMART, UK Managing Director, Jeremy Squire shares his experience on the tools needed to overcome increasing last mile challenges...

Key to the success of your last mile service delivery is planning appointments (when applicable) and Engineer routes that are both achievable and efficient. Not all methods for this are equal and in this article we explore the alternative methods used by scheduling technologies and why you need a real-time appointment optimiser, even if you prefer to fix the jobs to Engineers on the day of service delivery.

With the right systems to support you, the appointment booking is opportunity to guide your customer to the most cost effective time slot for an Engineer with the right skills and parts.

Every Field Service software solution includes appointment booking and often describe this as ‘optimised’.  Look closely at how this is achieved, the majority are far from optimal and result in unachievable appointments, heavy involvement by Planners and Managers, and cause some Engineers to work excessive hours whilst others are under utilised. 

Which of these are familiar to your way of working? The good, the bad, the ugly…or the best!

The Ugly – ‘patch’ method

Engineers are assigned exclusive postcode patches and new appointments can be offered until the maximum daily limit is reached. There is often a long wait for an appointment, even though neighbouring Engineers have availability, and you can typically only offer full day timeslots. Before the day of service begins, the scheduling system or a Planner will put each diary in a good order for travel according to maps, or the Engineers do it themselves.

The Bad – ‘basic’ white space scheduler 

With this method engineers work within a maximum travel radius from a start point and there is overlap between coverage areas. Each engineer has a route optimised utilising a driving time calculation with speeds according to road type. Timeslot options for a new appointment are calculated by the system finding ‘white space’ in the existing diary of suitable engineers and presenting best (lowest cost) choices based on deviation from current route – the job is then inserted into the chosen place in the diary.

Periodically, every few hours or overnight, you run the scheduler which will move jobs between the engineers for better routes and efficiency.

The comparison appointment costs given by this method are inaccurate because they do not consider the overall schedule so you end up ignoring them and just offer up any of the available slots, even if this was 2 hours driving one day or 10 minutes the next. Diaries may appear full which causes a long lead time to attend appointments, but running the scheduler later reveals availability was there all along – too late!

The Good – ‘enhanced’ white space scheduler

The ‘enhanced’ is based on the same principles as the ‘basic’ but smarter. Routes are more accurate using travel times with actual average speeds for each road segment according to the time of day. It is still just looking for white space in the diary but, after the appointment is booked, it will re-optimise this and nearby routes, moving jobs between engineers, ready for the next appointment request. 

Whilst this is more accurate than the ‘basic’ method, the comparison of appointment costs is still incorrect for the same reason. Also, an appointment that is calculated unavailable might actually be available if the ‘real-time’ method was used.

The Best – ‘real-time’ appointment optimiser

This method is truly best-of-breed. The schedule is always optimised with time of day traffic based travel speeds. For an appointment request, the system performs a real-time optimisation for each time slot requested, incorporating all relevant Engineers and jobs. It advises the difference in cost for adding this job into the fully optimised schedule for each available time slot.

To be practical in a customer service environment this must be achieved in seconds, even for high volumes, which is why there are few vendors able to offer this.

This is the only method that enables your customer service team (or self-service portal) to correctly offer and guide customers to pick the most cost effective time slot choices – resulting in mileage reduction and time for more jobs.

The real-time optimisation will also reveal time slots are available when all other methods would say the diary is full - reducing the average time to attend an appointment.

With this approach, you always know the planned schedule is accurate ready for last mile delivery - your Engineers will be happy with the plan and you are less likely to have challenges during the day of service or let customers down. Planners can be reassigned to customer service roles and  Managers can instead focus on quality of service.

The benefits of a ‘real-time’ appointment optimiser for your last mile service delivery are clear and we at FLS are so confident that we offer to facilitate you to prove this in live operation before commitment.

Customer proof

As Richard Wilson, IT Director HomeServe Boiler Installations comments, “We wanted a more dynamic tool, one that could continuously optimise, looking at every appointment and every field worker collectively and scheduling everything in the most optimal way.”

And the results - “FLS has enabled us to get to our appointments 25% quicker than we were. It’s really highlighted how efficient your scheduling can be when intelligent software does it for you. We see FLS as a growth facilitator. The efficiency gains are such that we’re now in a position to scale up”

FLS, FAST LEAN SMART, a leader in field force appointment, schedule and route optimisation solutions, is pleased to announce the results of its 2018 UK customer satisfaction survey undertaken in December 2018.

Jeremy Squire, FLS UK Managing Director comments “FLS is proud of our reputation for customers achieving excellent benefits from our scheduling solutions, however I believe it equally important for ongoing success that customers are also delighted with the support received and feeling of partnership we enjoy together.”

In this survey, every live user that is supported by FLS UK, ranging from Aqualisa with 50 engineers through to Royal Mail PFS with 500, answered the following questions:

• Question 1: On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to recommend FLS VISITOUR to a friend who has a similar scheduling requirement? Average Score 9.2, NPS=90
• Question 2: How do you rate the service you receive from FLS support? Average Score 9.4
• Question 3: How would you rate FLS for the partnership we have established together? Average Score 9.4

 Best in class

Jeremy Squire reflects “This is another year with very high rating for FLS performance and I believe at the pinnacle of our field. The best innovation combined with the best service means FLS scheduling software users are fully equipped to achieve the best results!”

Service as a differentiator 

“Good ratings lead to business success in many industries and I am sure it is no coincidence our UK recurring revenue has increased by more than 50% for the third year running. This was helped significantly by recommendation from these customers and the providers of CRM and service management software that we plug into, for example Dynamics 365. FLS is experiencing exciting growth but the results and satisfaction of existing customers will always remain at the heart of our business strategy.” reassures Jeremy.

Be social and share... 

The blend of GPS, real-time traffic information and latest workforce scheduling can yield previously unknown levels of efficiency for field service delivery. Jeremy Squire, Managing Directo, FLS, Fast Lean Smart explains how... 

The convergence between field force scheduling and vehicle tracking is not something on the horizon, it has already arrived - and with precise arrival times now offered by private car hire and delivery companies such as Uber, DPD, IKEA and Amazon, customers are already expecting the same for field service appointments and anything less may be perceived as poor service. It is fast becoming a necessity for field service companies to both realise and embrace this as essential to achieve.

At FLS, Fast Lean Smart, we specialise in scheduling and route optimisation solutions and our customers are increasingly interested in this convergence of technologies. I believe it is vital for most field service companies to consider this and let’s take a moment to look at both how and why you should be doing likewise.

If live GPS location coordinates are provided to FLS VISITOUR, our leading scheduling technology, we can re-plan your engineer job schedules based on exactly where they are in their current route rather than wait until a confirmation of arrival from their mobile app.

The system could be configured to automatically re-optimise the rest of the day ‘real-time’ for engineers based on the location updates. This might enable additional jobs, highlight where an SLA or appointment slot will be missed and optionally remove lower priority jobs from the schedule unless overtime is approved.

[quote float="left"]With the convergence of these technologies and capabilities, there really has been no better opportunity to enrich the profitability of your business whilst achieving happier engineers and happier customers[/quote]Many service operations, however, decide against this level of fluidity for their engineer’s day and therefore might choose to lock the next jobs or even the whole day and only make changes in exceptional circumstances and under the control of a planner. This is particularly true for tasks which require the engineer to have parts or for appointments that require preparation.

What is certain, however, is that knowing issues with the current plan in the back office is key for customer service and engineer welfare, therefore the more accurate this is the better. The driving durations used by the scheduling algorithm are also very important to achieve this objective and at FLS we use actual average drive speeds for each road segment according to time of day for pre-planning. Variable traffic congestion is a severe issue in some areas, therefore, we also use a real-time feed of current traffic to optimise during the day. With this combination, drive durations are as accurate as we have all become accustomed to when using TomTom Live or Google Navigation on our smartphones.

It requires this high level of accuracy to enable reliable automated messaging to customers with the refined time of arrival for engineers. However, combining GPS location data in the FLS VISITOUR scheduling system also enables our FLS Customer Portal which can be accessed via a URL in the arrival time message and for your customers to track the arrival of the engineer from the previous job on a map, Uber style! (no more ’Where’s my engineer?’ calls.)

This capability has now become the goal of almost every field service provider we speak with, not just  B2C, and whilst currently a USP we can expect it will increasingly become the norm.

Of course, all this has terrific benefits for the service provider as well as the customer.

Maximising productivity and minimising cost in the field whilst giving good service (right engineer with the right parts etc) is a standard desire for everyone, however, with the convergence of these technologies and capabilities, there really has been no better opportunity to enrich the profitability of your business whilst achieving happier engineers and happier customers.

To deliver this level of performance and customer excellence, integrating engineer tracking is essential and there is an answer for every circumstance; a vehicle telematics system, a low-cost GPS cigarette lighter tracker or a phone/tablet app such as FLS MOBILE.

The days of customers waiting blindly for an engineer to arrive are on the way out and field service companies must adapt to these new expectations swiftly to avoid being seen as outdated and uncompetitive. The good news is that the solutions are already available - it is just a case of connecting the dots - and FLS VISITOUR is a solution that allows you to do just that.

[hr]

Be social and share...

Fast Lean Smart (FLS) is helping to cut down travel and admin time for British Engineering Services, enabling field engineers to be more productive by up to 15% each day.

Paul Hirst, Managing Director Engineering Inspection, says “FLS have proven an outstanding partner since we began together in 2015. The FLS VISITOUR advanced scheduling solution is at the heart of our business strategy for field engineering efficiency whilst delivering the best customer experience.”

British Engineering Services is the UK’s biggest independent engineering inspection, testing and certification company and has a long history dating back to 1859. Customers include all kinds of businesses, from factories to nuclear power plants, from hospitals to schools. Until 2015 it was part of RSA, one of the world’s leading insurance groups and a FTSE 100 company, but is now established as a privately owned company.

Today, British Engineering Services employs 450 highly trained and qualified engineer surveyors and consultant engineers who perform 2.8 million inspections per year. Its customers benefit from state-of-the-art technology and excellent online reporting systems that can deliver information quickly and efficiently.

Never standing still

“We constantly review our performance and look for ways to exceed customer expectations,” says Stephen Doyle, Operations Development Leader for British

Engineering Services. “We pride ourselves on having some of the best people in the industry working for us. Many of our staff have been involved in engineering inspection and certification for decades. It is this deep knowledge and understanding of our customers’ requirements that has shaped our business and led us to working with FLS.”

The right engineer for the right job at the right time

FLS’s flagship solution, FLS VISITOUR, helps to match availability with customer demand. The software automatically schedules inspections for the entire engineering team and selects the right engineer with the right skill set for the right job. Through

customisable variables, the FLS solution consolidates multiple inspections due at one site into a single visit. It also uses advanced mapping software to choose the most efficient routes to each appointment, including consideration of traffic at the time-of-day. FLS VISITOUR will ensure that each appointment is the best fit for the customer, the engineer and British Engineering Services as a whole.

"The initial findings from FLS VISITOUR clearly demonstrated a significant reduction in travel time but also the added benefit of reduced admin time for the Engineers..."

Stephen explains, “We looked at lots of different scheduling solution providers, but none of them gave us the flexibility that we wanted. Then we found FLS, who offered a highly configurable system and made every effort to understand our company, our data, and deliver what was right for us and our customers. They also demonstrated what their software could do with initial data tests and a ‘try before you buy’ trial. This was a big reason why we chose them.”

The initial findings from FLS VISITOUR clearly demonstrated a significant reduction in travel time but also the added benefit of reduced admin time for the Engineers by enabling the introduction of a central planning team to arrange the inspections.

Stephen says, “The trial proved the efficiency and productivity-fuelling benefits of FLS VISITOUR, but it also helped us prepare for the full implementation. We learnt what to do, who to involve, and how to make the transition as smooth as possible for our people.”

Inspection timing and risk management

British Engineering Services take safety and compliance very seriously and have unsurpassed engineering inspection certification accreditations and memberships. Inspections are planned in advance to give the customer notice and allow any access issues to be addressed before the day.

One of the business challenges is that inspections performed too early would bring subsequent inspections forward which increases costs, but overdue inspections could create a safety and compliance risk. The fact that FLS VISITOUR manages this timing and enables the coordination of multiple inspections in one visit is not just beneficial in reduced travel time and costs, it is also less disruptive for its customers whilst ensuring safety standards are met.

Working in partnership

“We’ve found the whole team at FLS really helpful and approachable and feel this is a genuine partnership that continues to improve our efficiency and quality of service.” Stephen explains. “They’re always available when we need them and regularly review the rules and settings within VISITOUR to ensure we are meeting our own customers’ expectations in the best possible way. I cannot recommend FLS highly enough.”

Be social and share... 

Gilbarco Veeder-Root — the leading petrol forecourt equipment and services provider in the UK — has learned that route planning software really can work. Enter Fast Lean Smart (FLS) and its particular brand of automation.

Major petrol station brands, supermarket chains and independent dealers up and down the country rely on Gilbarco. By extension, so do millions of motorists. Gilbarco Veeder Root is charged with maintaining the equipment it provides by way of an extensive national network of field engineers. With so many forecourts to look after, Gilbarco Veeder Root’s operation has to be efficient and smart.

Until now, the smartest way of doing things has been manual. Gilbarco Veeder Root had tried automation years ago. It implemented a scheduling program that didn’t prove intelligent enough to plan routes that reflected the real-life business environment. Nor was it flexible enough to react to changes in that environment which include 2-hour responses.

It’s understandable, then, that when FLS approached Gilbarco with promises of radically improved scheduling efficiency through automation, David Cope — UK Operations Director for Gilbarco Veeder Root — was sceptical.

The main reason Gilbarco Veeder Root was willing to consider a change was because FLS lets prospective customers trial its software first. “We’d tried scheduling software before and it didn’t work, so I wasn’t sure how VISITOUR was going to benefit us,” says David. “However, FLS were keen for us to see that it worked in practice and come to our own conclusions before committing to a sale. We didn’t have that choice with the old system.”

David continues, “As a first step they offered to run a test using data from planned maintenance and customer callouts we had scheduled manually. We were expecting them to say that their software could schedule our callouts maybe 5-10% more efficiently. When they brought back a figure of 30-40%, it really was too compelling to ignore and we, therefore, agreed to proceed with a trial.”

Gilbarco Veeder Root trialled FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE in live use for a chosen geographic area. FLS VISITOUR schedules callouts and plans optimised appointments and routes in real time, taking into account traffic-based driving times and the changing priorities of the business. FLS MOBILE provides comprehensive on-the-road support for field engineers and streamlines communication between them, the office and the customer.

David explains, “We were impressed with the results. FLS VISITOUR makes intelligent decisions based on what’s important to our business and can adapt quickly to changing circumstances in a way the old system couldn’t. FLS MOBILE is going to improve the service we provide, particularly to our independent dealers, who we’ve had trouble keeping in touch with because of the complexity involved. FLS MOBILE will keep them up to date by sending automated messages with our arrival times.”

Following the successful trial, an interface was required between FLS and Gilbarco Veeder Root’s service management system to prepare for rollout. Their system has limited integration support and FLS worked with the supplier’s developers to create an innovative solution. David adds, “We were determined to solve the interface because we knew the size of the prize. The one thing that stood out through the transition was that FLS were always on hand to assist us, FLS could stand for Fast Lean Smart or Friends Lending Support — both fit well for me. We are delighted with our choice of FLS and to have enabled the benefits of VISITOUR to be realised nationally.”

Be social and share 

FLS Contact information: 

Services provided by FLS: 

The company that made UK showers smart is about to do the same to its scheduling operation, by overhauling it with powerful new software from Fast Lean Smart (FLS).

Aqualisa was the brainchild of founder Derek Goldsmith, an engineer who bound together two dissimilar metals to create the Bi-Metallic Coil in 1976, making cold showers a thing of the past. In the 00s, Aqualisa introduced the digital shower, which provides consistent, no-fluctuation water temperature at the touch of a button. Over the years, Aqualisa’s smart showers have become ever more sophisticated, particularly with the recent introduction of the QTM, which has personalised functions promising the perfect shower.

Aqualisa employs a network of field engineers to service and maintain its showers, which are supplied under warranties of up to five years. To book maintenance appointments, Aqualisa used scheduling software that did the job but was limited in scope and had received very few updates since it was implemented. Kieran McNally, field service manager for Aqualisa, explains, “We knew there were better products on the market. So as our contract with the previous provider came up for renewal, we shopped around, attended exhibitions, and invited potential vendors to present their product. FLS was one of them.”

The way the data is presented makes it easy to read, understand and manipulate, so we can see what’s happening across the whole service chain.FLS demoed its real-time scheduler and route optimiser, FLS VISITOUR, and offered an initial test: taking jobs already scheduled by the old system and seeing if FLS VISITOUR could do it better. Without changing appointments, FLS VISITOUR brought back a 9% fuel saving and showed the potential for much more if it had been used to schedule the appointments in the first place.

“The fuel saving was significant, and was one of the reasons why we chose the system” says Kieran. “There were other factors too. FLS VISITOUR has a number of cost- and time-saving functions the old system didn’t. For example, if an engineer phones in sick, the system will automatically reassign their jobs or propose the most economical engineer if overtime is required. The on-screen graphics are well laid out too. The way the data is presented makes it easy to read, understand and manipulate, so we can see what’s happening across the whole service chain.”

Aqualisa proceeded with a ‘try before you buy’ trial, which FLS offers all new customers. This involved a light integration with Aqualisa’s service management system, Tesseract, and live operation for eight engineers. “The results of the trial were really positive,” says Kieran. “Mileage costs were reduced and we saw an increase in the average number of jobs per day. We quickly learnt how to use the system and received a very good, very accommodating service from FLS.”

With the business case for using the software proven, FLS VISITOUR will be deployed company-wide this month. For Kieran the outlook is positive. “It’s a huge improvement on the system we had before and makes us far more efficient than we were. What’s more, FLS is constantly refining it, making it better for customers, so that we can provide a better service to ours.”

Be social and share

Fast Lean Smart (FLS) is working with Royal Mail Property & Facilities Solutions (RMPFS) to implement a new scheduling software system to increase productivity and establish a site ownership model.

RMPFS wanted to upgrade its current scheduling and route planning software to achieve new levels of efficiency and productivity from its service operations. The company’s existing system is over 10 years old and no longer meets its needs.

“We looked at several scheduling and route planning systems providers, FLS being one of them,” says Scott Maddocks, Project Manager for RMPFS.

“After the initial demonstration, we carried out a number of FLS customer site visits to see the software in action. We engaged our management teams, our engineers and our unions because we wanted them all to be happy that the software would work.”

After the initial demonstration, we carried out a number of FLS customer site visits to see the software in action. We engaged our management teams, our engineers and our unions because we wanted them all to be happy that the software would work.In the end, FLS came out on top. “We chose FLS for a number of reasons,” says Scott. “The user front end was better than the other products we looked at, and FLS gave us confidence that their software could be integrated with our existing service management system. We also thought that FLS would be good to work with, more agile and better able to deliver what we wanted than the other suppliers.”

One of RMPFS’s goals was to plan jobs more efficiently. FLS’s ability to plan optimised routes in real time will help it do this. FLS software takes into account specific business priorities, traffic-based driving times and countless other variables for both planned and reactive work. RMPFS also wants to reduce the number of return visits its engineers have to do. FLS will give them a portal where they can see four weeks of planned work in advance and allocate the necessary resources to each job. Engineers will be able to request job assists and equipment hire in advance of the job using the new portal.

Another key requirement for RMPFS was the establishment of a site ownership model, i.e. the allocation of tasks to preferred engineers according to a set of criteria to ensure that the right skills are in the right place at the right time. “We wanted software that could navigate several tiers of engineer choices, to allow them to build their site knowledge and relationships and reduce their travel time,” says Scott. “FLS proved that its system was up to the challenge and could enable our engineers to work at preferred sites in preferred regions based on an extensive and complex series of rules.”

Be social and share