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The topic of knowledge transfer and knowledge capture has been increasingly prominent within the field service sector, so the Field Service USA presentation on the topic by Greg Parker, building services portfolio director for Trane, is set to offer some well-timed guidance on best practice in this area this week at Field Service USA.

Kris Oldland spoke to him ahead of the event to get his thoughts on the topic.

“When we talk about knowledge transfer, we’re talking about how we bring information from where it is in one spot to where it needs to be,” Parker begins as we open the discussion.

“Not only that, it’s about can you get it there effectively and efficiently,” he continues. “I would say it’s like knowledge-on-demand.”

“As a technician in particular, many times you may be in a situation where you need to open your laptop or even look inside a manual and dig for information. Of course, the more seasoned, experienced techs are knowledgeable through years of experience, but those who don’t know everything – due to poor training or applying that information incorrectly – need to reference manuals for correct information.”

“So this knowledge or information-on-demand becomes ever more important as time goes along and the technique as to how we transfer this knowledge becomes even more important,” Parker adds.

Of course, with many companies facing a major crisis in replacing their ageing workforce has the importance of knowledge transfer programs grown from nice to have to critical?

 

“The short answer is yes,” Parker comments. “For some companies – depending on the environment and their customers and expectations – it could be essential today, for other companies it could be still just beneficial. At some point I’m sure we could all agree that whether it’s five years, ten years or even fifteen years down the road, it is going to become essential for everyone.”

Given the importance of knowledge transfer in terms of helping companies manage the transition from a workforce of baby boomers to millennials, is it important that these knowledge transfer programs embrace social media? Or is it more important that companies get into the mind-set and understanding that the way people absorb knowledge has changed when developing? Is it about embracing the technology, the culture or do the two just go hand in hand?

“People receive and process information differently today than they did five years ago and certainly different to how they did 20 years ago,” Parker comments. “I think the changing culture is part of it, but I also think technologies that allow people to receive and process technology will continue to evolve.”

“First there was Quattro Pro and Excel, then the Internet, now social media comes along and has continued to evolve to where we are today. What we are finding is a lot of different types of applications that someone, likely a millennial, is going to be using. For example, not everyone is using just Facebook or Twitter, they are using several different means of communication to get the information they need, from the daily news to how to fix their washer and drier.”

“If the question is how important is it to embrace social and mobile channels, I still believe it is important to understand what it means for you and your company. You need to ensure you are delighting your end user; the customer, then determine how you can best achieve that throughout the entire value chain,” Parker explains.

 

“You have to ask questions like ‘if my technician has informational demands would they do a better job?’ ‘Would a technician be more confident and portray better customer service because they are able to delight the customer?’ Keep in mind most times a technician is the face to the customer and the most trusted advisor.”

“Considering that, the next question is ‘how do we do that, and is embracing social and mobile a way to do that?’”

“What we learned eight or nine years ago, was technicians wanted to be able to communicate via social and mobile channels. Our approach was to foster and enable it. Recently, we took it to the next level where technicians could not only find the information that they needed, but they could comment and share as well.”

“We had to think about what were the pros and cons of this, and have we developed into a culture who is a more willing to share information now than several years ago?”

“The answer is yes, we are more liberal in the information we share and ultimately we are more transparent, but we want to be sure we can enable our workforce in the proper way to delight our customers.”

Having gone through the process himself, what exactly does Parker believe success looks like in terms of the implementation of knowledge transfer?

“I think success should be measured with a number of probes and not just one thing,” he begins.

“For us, how we look at this is both quantitative and qualitative. From a quantitative perspective we look at things such as how much information has been shared with the new tool, and can measure that far more than we ever could before,” Parker explained. “We will also look at a macro level to see if our customer service and customer satisfaction scores are improving.”

 

“From a quantitative perspective, we have seen a shift from technicians solely calling into the technical support line for help, to now leveraging the new social platforms which are faster, more validated and accurate.”

“However, it is not all about the metrics,” added Parker. “We wanted feedback from the technicians themselves to find out how well the new platforms were working, we used those testimonials to improve the organisation and determined what types of best practices were being shared using the knowledge transfer and social platform.”

So what advice does Parker have for companies looking to emulate the success Trane has had with their knowledge transfer programs?

“Look internally to your company, understand how your current communication process is working for your customers and what are their needs and wants,” Parker replied. “Are you meeting those needs as well as you want to or should be?”

“Every company has a different culture and different processes. You have to truly understand how your existing process is working, where you want it to be and then design a road map to get you there.”

 

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Heating engineers across the UK will enjoy a new, updated version of PartsArena Pro from January 2017 as creator, Infomill rolls out its latest improvements to the leading source of heating parts and technical data to over 2,600 licensed users.

With the ability to access the app offline on iOS, Android and Windows, PartsArena Pro has fast become an essential efficiency tool for heating engineers whilst out in the field. Instant access to technical manuals, part imagery, interactive exploded views, parts codes and a stockist locator helps engineers to reduce time on-site and improve the first time fix rate by ensuring much more accurate parts ordering.

The system is being used by heating companies including larger organisations and SME’s to enhance customer service and cut cost on site. Many engineers are benefitting from integration with their field management systems, enabling automated parts ordering.

The January update of PartsArena Pro will see many improvements and enhancements, often developed from valuable user feedback. These include:

• A new user interface with dropdown menu replacing tabs
•  One-time log-in account for activation
• Manually add notes to an appliance or part for handy reminders
• Create a Favourites list of appliances and parts for swift access
• Quick access to recently viewed parts and documents
• Copy part codes to a clipboard to paste into external documents
• Automated feedback forms as part of the help and support available
• Full on-screen help throughout the app

 Jonathan Ralphs, Managing Director, Infomill commented on the update saying “We’re very proud of our market-leading app that continues to provide huge efficiency benefits for heating engineers nationwide. Forever wishing to keep PartsArena Pro cutting-edge, we have a highly skilled team that reviews all user feedback in addition to technological advances, to understand how we can make this invaluable app even more effective and intuitive to use. The result being that this updated version will certainly enhance service performance every single day."

PartsArena Pro is increasingly being integrated into field service management systems to offer efficiencies at every level coupled with a better customer experience. A recent example concerned field service management company Aeromark working with Infomill and Plumb & Parts Center to deliver a brand new, fully integrated system for use by Swale Heating; a ground-breaking USP for this heating company.

 

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Swale Heating Ltd, the largest independent heating maintenance provider in the South East has successfully replaced the software which runs it’s business with the market leading Optimatics from Aeromark.

Swale Heating who look after more than 130,000 properties and directly employ over 280 Engineers, sought to replace it’s multiple systems with fully integrated market leading software that offered the very best in advances in technology.

Steve Parish, Chief Information Officer at Swale said “Swale has seen considerable growth over the last 5 years and we recognised in 2015 that we needed to invest in the very best software and mobile technology to prepare us for the next 10 years. Following a market search, we identified Optimatics as being the transformational product we were looking for and we built a team with Aeromark to implement the replacement system”.

The new service management software not only replaces a number of existing legacy systems in one application, but also streamlines all the processes within the business into agile workflows. As a result, Swale expects to achieve an increase in productivity for the engineers through improved scheduling and far better statutory compliance especially with associated record keeping, whilst further improving its customer service experience and “first time fix” rates.

 

“The system has some really clever technology especially related to parts sourcing. Once the Engineer has diagnosed the fault at the click of a button on their tablet the mobile app opens up an exploded diagram of the boiler, the part is identified and the app then sends the order to be automatically price and availability checked against all Wolseley UK depots . Depending on the travel time to fetch the part and the cost, the system seamlessly orders the part for immediate collection. We expect this feature alone to improve our first time fix rates considerably” said Steve.

One of the other key benefits of the system is the way that reporting is delivered. Whilst the product is delivered via Software-as-a-Service providing all the benefits of this modern technology, the architecture provides for a real time on-site database for management reporting.

 

Phil White IT Manager at Swale said “The way Aeromark deliver their reporting is really useful. The core application is Web based but we have a real time mirrored copy of the data on site which allows us unrestricted access to all the data. This means that in no time at all we were able to build our own report suite which delivers exactly what we need, which will allow us to deliver information the business demands in the future”.

 

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Aeromark, one of the UK’s leading Service Management Systems, has announced it has successfully completed a full integration of its Optimatics Service Management Software with Wolseley UK as part of its unique “Smarter Parts” module.

Optimatics offers a complete Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution specialising in the Domestic Heating, HVAC and Refrigeration Sectors, which covers everything from managing assets and planned service schedules through to dynamic real time scheduling and Engineer Mobile Apps on one simple to use web based software suite.

As the UK’s leading supplier of plumbing and heating products, Wolseley UK is spearheading the development of electronic solutions which redefine the customer experience - helping them to save time, money and hassle through more efficient management of their workflows.

Combined, the systems provide a transformational offering in supply chain optimisation both in terms of operational improvements and also cost savings.

 

On receipt of a service call, Aeromark’s new “Smarter Parts” module springs into action immediately, identifying the Asset and Serial number and matching common faults with previously ordered parts for the same model. It dynamically schedules the best Engineer to the Job based on their route and instantly sends all the relevant information to their mobile app. Once on site, the Engineer has instant access to the pertinent technical information using PartsArena from Infomill.

They can view exploded diagrams of the make and model, and easily identify and select the parts required by simply clicking the diagram’s hyperlinks. The Aeromark system then checks live stock levels at all Wolseley UK branches and customer vans in the vicinity in real time. Having carried out an automated approval process, the system orders the part for either immediate collection or delivery depending on the forecast travel time.

This seamless, end-to-end process removes a considerable number of unnecessary touch points, improves first time parts identification, cuts down on revisits and considerably improves the customer experience.

 

Roger Marks, MD of Aeromark said: “This integration enables Aeromark to provide a more powerful solution to some of the biggest challenges to field service operations – getting the right parts, to the right place, in the optimum time. We are now even able to forecast delivery times for the more obscure non- stock items and optimise dynamically whether the Engineer should collect or order for delivery based on daily workload and travel times”.

Jeremy Maxwell, Multichannel Director, Wolseley UK said: “We are leading the way in developing new digital workflow solutions for our customers which can dramatically improve their efficiency, drive down costs and improve their service levels. This partnership with Aeromark and Infomill has created a market-leading digital platform that could be used by many customers operating at scale in the heating, HVAC and refrigeration space. By delivering accurate real-time information direct to the engineer, enabling faster decision-making and processing of orders, and enabling this to happen on customers’ own systems we’ve made Wolseley UK even easier to do business with.“

Jonathan Ralphs, CEO of Infomill remarked: “Infomill are proud to be partnered with Aeromark and Wolseley UK. This ground-breaking integration will really boost efficiency and improve customer service.”

 

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Kate Lovery of UK based, field service focussed Gas Engineering, Catering Equipment and HVAC specialist maintenance company Service2 outlines how they developed their business since selecting ServiceMax field service software.

In this video published by ServiceMax Lovery explains what has changed, why it has been a success for Service2's clients, how they are using the tools to help them build and analyse their field service operations, how the ServiceMax field service solution addresses the needs of their field service operations, and of course why they chose the ServiceMax field service solution.

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You can also read Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland's exclusive interview with Lovery which first appeared in Field Service News March/April 2015 issue by clicking here.

 

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Yorkshire based company Service2 show that smaller companies don’t need to wait until they grow before adopting a field service software platform...

One of the biggest changes to field service companies in recent times has been the advent of the Cloud and the Software as a Service (SaaS) model and perhaps the biggest shift that the introduction of SaaS has brought is that for the first time ever field service software is no longer the domain of large enterprise companies only.

Due to the subscription based nature of SaaS offerings smaller companies are now able to access the types of software that only a few years ago would have been cost-prohibitive to them.

As such they are able to offer their customers similar levels of service as the big boys whilst at the same time being able to reap the benefits of enhanced productivity and efficiency such systems yield. The playing field has been well and truly levelled – or at least so the theory goes.

However how does this filter down in reality?

Is there truth in such assertions or is it just a case of clever marketing spin form the software providers?

To find out how field service management software can help a small company we spoke exclusively to Kate Lovery at Service2, a Yorkshire based Gas appliance installation and maintenance provider who have implemented the ServiceMax platform.

The business originally came into being when founders James and Chris, who both have background in engineering themselves, (Chris was predominantly working with catering equipment and boilers whilst James was more focussed on heating and ventilation) found themselves being approached with promises of Directorships for a new start-up.

However, as is sadly often the case, the promises didn’t meet reality, but the seeds of a successful business had been sown between the two, so in November 2011 they decided to set up by themselves.

Having started like most young businesses do taking as much work of any form that they could to build up the business and establish contacts and clients on the way, they quickly established a successful niche for themselves as they moved away from domestic jobs and began establishing a strong reputation for contract based commercial work.

Big name clients such as NG Bailey, Norland, and the Marriott group soon came along and with them so did more engineers, more office staff and 200% year on year growth.

However, the flip side of such success is the growing logistical headache of how to manage the business.

 

As Lovery explains “We’ve got a really nice spread of clients but my focus over the last year has been look how can we manage this? I can’t manage ten engineers and how ever many clients on an Excel spreadsheet so what are we going to do?”

“I needed to stop and ask how can we take this forward and be more dynamic? How can we be faster, quicker, more streamlined.” She adds

With the need to find a solution Lovery began opening the conversation up to the team and in fact it was one of their engineers who suggested ServiceMax.

At the same time she also had a recommendation from one of their commercial partners for the SaaS based field service software provider. Contact details were swapped and soon they were reviewing the ServiceMax system.

“They came to see us and gave us a presentation and we looked at it and thought about it and then initially put it on the back burner.” Admits Lovery.

Something that many companies in Service2’s position will do as the day to day tasks of keeping your business growing take over your To Do list.

However, Lovery was wise enough to take a step back, to focus on the forest rather than the one tree ahead of her as it were and realised if Service2 was to continue to grow they would be better off acting sooner rather than later.

“We thought you know what we really need to do this now.” She concedes “Our plan is to be twice the size, three times the size year on year and I thought I don’t want to be implementing a system for 50 people when I can implement it now for 15.”

“I also wanted to make it an integral part of our DNA. How we go through our processes, how we perform.” She adds

 

Such an approach is of course extremely forward looking and one that many companies only realise they should have taken when it’s too late. However for Lovery it was simple common sense.

“Coming from a clients service/account management background for me it is absolutely vital that we can manage our accounts properly, we just simply wouldn’t be able to grow unless we do” she explains

“With our previous system I just couldn’t see how we could manage that. It’s just too many plates spinning, For us it’s like we’ve employed the system instead of employing another person to some degree."

And it’s not just the task of managing the engineers that is proving useful to Lovery. It is also the ability to keep a much closer eye on the P&L.

“Before we didn’t have such huge visibility we didn’t really have much transparency to be honest. Not because it’s wasn’t there I just didn’t have time to go and find the information I needed.” She explains

“Unless I’ve got a system like ServiceMax how can I track every nut and bolt that is purchased against a job? I can do some costing and put some rough numbers around what our profit and loss is but without a system like this in truth “ To me that’ visibility is really, really vital. It’s about being able to see both where we can maximise profitability but also where we can make cost savings etc.”

Of course the Field Service Software market is a highly competitive one and despite the recommendations Lovery looked at some of the other providers available before opting for ServiceMax. So what was it that made them the preferred option? “I found ServiceMax to be a to be a lot more dynamic.” She starts “I also liked the fact that it was Cloud based not something that was built on our system.”

“At times you think well we’re only a small company of 15 people, how is that going to work for us - but surely principles that the business is built on, the foundations, they are the same regardless of size.”

 

“For me best practice isn’t what the engineers on the other side of town are doing, I look to Cannon and GE and those types of brands and ask what are they doing? So I love the fact that ServiceMax has small family owned businesses as much as multi-nationals as part of their client list.”

It is here that we perhaps begin to see why ServiceMax have gained such a glowing reputation from this particular customer.

For whilst Lovery is clearly very happy with the software, her endorsement of the software provider runs far deeper than product alone.

“I really like the networking opportunities and the different people it would bring you into contact with that other providers couldn’t offer.” She continues referring to the many client focussed seminars , workshops and conferences ServiceMax run each year.

“I’ve really enjoyed the seminars at their usergroup and  for me just being able to take part in that type of event, listen to other peoples issues – what they love about the platform what they don’t, is just so helpful.”

“You don’t know what you don’t know so, just listening to others who have been with the platform longer or have experience managing bigger teams than ours, such sessions are really useful.” She adds.

It is through such activities that ServiceMax are able to encourage their customers to grow with the platform. An approach that generates more than enough brand loyalty to make these events worthwhile.

“The last thing I would want to do is change a system at some point in the future, It may seem cheaper or easier at the time to have taken another platform but we really like the direction of ServiceMax as a company and it seems that they are someone we can grow with. It seems that they don’t stand still at all. There approach is very much ‘how can we make this package work for you” Enthuses Lovery

 

In addition to the networking opportunities that ServiceMax offer to their user base it is also their commitment to delivering excellent customer service that has Lovery so impressed.

“Our account manager has been really excellent I have to say” she comments “he has been really supportive, helping us make the right connections, just offering support and advice when we need it, on that level the client service is fantastic and that’s the case with the whole team so far.”

And with a dedicated project manager available Lovery is confident that she will be able to be fully adapt the software to their needs as the company continues to grow and evolve.

“Because I’m implementing it myself my project manager, who I speak to two three times a week is teaching me the tricks and tools that I might not have been aware of and that has given me a certain amount of independence to run with it.”

She explains “If in six months time I want to make a few changes I’ll be able to do that myself”

Indeed in the often ruthless world of corporate software it is refreshing to note Lovery’s enthusiasm for her provider.

Yet by giving Lovery and Service2 the freedom to make such changes, and empowering them to be able to manage their system as their business grows, supporting them with excellent service, and helping them establish a wider network of contacts, ServiceMax are likely to secure the business of this fast growing company for many years to come.

 

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Field Service News podcast. This month we welcome back Simon Spriggs of Exel Computer systems as we look at what are the biggest challenges for large field service companies, what lessons can smaller companies learn from their larger counterparts and why the HVAC industry is leading the way in many aspects of field service.

 

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Click here to download the full podcast now!

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