ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘optimisation-2’ CATEGORY

Steve Wellen, CEO of FieldAware outlines the evolution of analytics and how field service organisations are reaping the benefits...

Research into field service management consistently shows that when respondents are asked what they are planning to invest in or are looking to implement, analytic tools, more and more, are being highlighted above other functionality.

No great surprise given that today’s field service operations can rely on many different systems and solutions, all of which generate huge amounts of data. However, being able to organise and analyse data in an effective, simple and reliable way is a major challenge and without the means of turning it into something actionable, many businesses just don’t benefit. So, where are we in the evolution of field service analytics and how are field service organisations making their data work smarter, not harder?

Data, data everywhere

Over the past decade, field service organisations have become overwhelmed by the increasing information coming in from multiple sources and in various formats. As field service has become more and more integrated with other business solutions, (including accounting, ERP and CRM), organising this data becomes such a complex task that it may simply end up being unused. Managers and team members may then revert to relying on what they used to do, or make decisions based on hunches to run the business, rather than use the business intelligence they need.

Business leaders understand the data they have cannot be ignored. The major challenge they face, however, is how to sift through the data and link it together in a meaningful way. Data is often from disparate systems, but needs to be collated and reported in an easily understood way, to reveal the valuable insights that are needed for day-to-day performance and longer-term business strategy.

A brief history of field service analytics

The early adopters of field service analytics have seen a transformation of the solutions available, and we have witnessed this evolution first-hand.

We have seen our customers move from their initial requirements of basic business reporting, through to needing a comprehensive business intelligence solution.

Early on, it was often a snapshot of what had happened that was required, for example, how many jobs had been completed. It soon became apparent that organisations had different performance indicators to manage, and individuals needed metrics specific to roles. A layer of sophistication was needed, with custom reports where customers could then dive deeper to retrieve further information.

They could explore the types of jobs that were being completed, monitor individual performance or compare geographies.

Using data to make business decisions then drove the need for further information and queries could be set up to examine any problems or if any differences were apparent, for example, time taken on jobs, cost variations or first-time fix rates.

In addition, alerts could be set to enable better management of SLAs by flagging potential issues such as at-risk jobs.

A continual journey

All useful perspective, but for those using analytics for the first time, there is now no reason to stop at what could simply be seen to be mimicking what paper-based processes capture on the ‘what’ and the ‘where’.

Leap forward and it is the ‘why’ within analytics capabilities that truly enhances the value. After generating basic reports, managers did not always have time, the knowledge or experience to translate the results into meaningful action.

Advances in analytics provide businesses with the ability to view data after it has been configured and cross-referenced using statistical modelling.

Better decisions can be made more easily as they are based on accurate, analysed information, and better decision-making means a more effective, efficient operation.

The future’s bright, the future is optimised 

Today, field service leaders realise they need analytics that enables them to make more informed decisions to continue to grow their business. Just having data is not enough – they need the ability to use the data to align service teams to work together towards meeting company goals and managing customer expectations. Organisations now demand analytics solutions that migrate from reactive to predictive operations.

They need to move from insight to action faster than ever before with business insights from finance, CRM, ERP, FSM solutions that they depend upon for everyday operations.

They need better teamwork and collaboration so that they can quickly arrive at consensus, act and capitalise on opportunities.

These include discovering hidden opportunities and finding the next big opportunity in the business intelligence.

The business is optimised not only through these day-to-day enhancements, but the operational insights are consistently fed back to business and management, enabling a real-time feedback loop ensuring that key metrics improve continuously - creating a cycle of continual improvement for the field service organisation and improved operations.

For more information on using analytics for your field service optimisation and how you can reap the benefits, visit www.fieldaware.com 

Be social and share

 

Laraine Geddes, Marketing Manager, Kirona explains how dynamic resource scheduling & mobile working can help you keep promises to customers...

Driving efficiencies in your organisation and ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Regardless of whether you are managing planned maintenance, reactive field based tasks or complex projects, efficiency comes from doing the right things, at the right time with the most appropriate resources. For the customer, what they want is exactly the same, for you to keep your promises, to perform and complete the task required when you say you will.

Kirona have outlined four ways in which organisations can deliver their promises to customers.

Setting expectations:

It is a careful balance to ensure that customer preferences for appointments are taken into account while also optimising resource utilisation and minimising travel time of operatives. When procuring dynamic resource scheduling software ensure it provides available appointment slots to be offered to customers, whilst highlighting the most efficient slots for the organisation in terms of resource utilisation and travel time.

Setting the right expectation & keeping promises can achieve Customer Satisfaction of 95% or higher.

Communicating with your customer:

One of the primary reasons for appointments being missed is no access to the property, often caused by the customer not being at home.

Kirona’s Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS) makes it easy to keep customers informed. Each appointment can be confirmed by email or SMS, with reminders being sent at time intervals such as 24 or 48 hours before the job is due. When an operative updates the job on their mobile device to say that they are en-route to the property, an SMS can be sent to remind the customer.

There will always be exceptions that occur.

Whether it is an unavoidable overrun of a previous job or delays caused by traffic, it is essential that the customer is kept informed. Through the seamless and real-time integration of DRS and Kirona’s Job Manager mobile workforce application, such delays can be proactively managed with a communication sent to the customer informing them that their operative has been delayed and resetting expectations of when they will arrive. Not only does this approach reduce the negative impact on customers, it can also reduce calls from customers to your contact centre chasing progress.

 

North Lanarkshire Council’s no access rate dropped from 40% to just 3% through use of Kirona’s DRS and Job Manager.

Dealing with the emerging day:

No two days can be the same and it is common for events in the day, including emergency work, to require changes to the schedule. The challenge is to cater for overrunning work or new work items while keeping customer promises and also ensuring that you continue to operate in the most optimum way.

By utilising Kirona’s Job Manager as your mobile working solution integrated into Dynamic Resource Scheduling, you gain full visibility of the work being performed in the field. You can see in real-time potential delays and the impact that this will have on your intra-day schedule Rather than having to hold back emergency slots in your schedule or allocating emergency work on a first availability basis, DRS enables you to take a more efficient approach. As changes in the day occur, DRS re-evaluates the day’s plan, adjusting work allocation to take into account the emerging work or availability to ensure you maintain the most optimum work schedule across all available operatives.

Delivering a first time fix:

Not all jobs run to plan. A job can simply take longer than expected. The efficient way to deal with this is to provide the operative with the time they need to complete the task. This avoids an additional appointment being required and ensures that your original promise to the customer is kept.

Step one to increasing the rate of first time fix is ensuring that for each job you have the right operative, resources and time allocated. Key to this is an effective triage process that ensures you can define the key parameters used for scheduling work. Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS) enables you to define different categories of skills and qualification of each operative and to align this to job requirements ensuring you always send the right operative.

 

When complications or work variations arise, the seamless integration of Job Manager (JM) and Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS), enables for this to be immediately notified to planners. With full visibility across all operatives of the day’s work and its progression, they are able to quickly sanction job variations and realign work items to ensure other customer commitments are met.

Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower talks us through a variety of different scheduling solutions and how they can turbo charge service delivery...

When I think of a ‘turbo boost’, a few images pop into my head. From Superman to a luxury car that eats up the track, a turbo boost ‘supercharges’ an action, with apparent ease, whether that’s saving the innocents or posting the fastest lap times.

In relation to mobile workforce management, a turbo boost to scheduling operations can be just what’s required to achieve the next level performance to drive customer satisfaction, retention and future sales and that turbo boost can only be found in true optimisation that places the power of cognitive computing and big data at your fingertips.

The automation, calculation speed, and schedule quality inherent in true artificial intelligence (AI) based optimisation engines maximises the productivity and efficiency of mobile workforces, while reducing costs and ultimately improving the customer experience.

 

Despite stories from the industry about prolonged deployments, platforms which require heavy development and customisation, engines which can’t process large volumes of work without failing or batching unprocessed job, real AI based schedule optimisation can boost your operation, and it does so with ease.

What does Scheduling Mean?

Mobile workforce management solutions (MWFM), have at their core typically ‘scheduling’, functionality which is used to manage mobile workers and at its most basic includes job scheduling, job dispatch and mobility software.

There are generally 3 kinds of scheduling solutions available which offer varying degrees of benefits, from white board / no optimisation solutions to the real, intra-day AI optimisation that enable your business to be much more productive and scalable.

Types of Scheduling

Basic Scheduling

Basic scheduling software requires building and managing a schedule manually. It’s labourintensive, doesn’t consider travel time, and doesn’t apply any computer logic to scheduling decisions, exception handling or schedule changes.

Most of these vendors offer something similar to Microsoft Outlook with drag-and-schedule functionality. Basic scheduling isn’t scalable, and doesn’t support any kind of complexity or manage large volumes of work well.

There is no turbo boost in this option; it’s more like a bicycle.

Automated, Rules-Based Scheduling

Larger volumes and complexity can’t be handled by basic scheduling. It’s too much and too hard for manual processes. It’s inefficient, costly and inaccurate.

Software which offers simple computer logic is the next option. Vendors often call these rules based computer programs ‘optimised scheduling’, but they aren’t.

Some of them do automatically build a schedule using technician skills, availability, and service level agreements, so these are a better option than basic manual scheduling. However, if these packages can’t use a simple rule based on the skill, availability, and SLA, they can’t schedule the jobs.

These really only fill white spaces. Filling a white spot on a schedule is not optimisation.

There’s no real turbo boost here either. This is like a scooter; there’s some power, but you’re not going very far or very fast.

Artificial Intelligence based Intelligent Scheduling

True route and schedule optimisation, such as ServiceScheduling from ServicePower, uses artificial intelligence algorithms, like Simulated Annealing, and our latest algorithm, Quantum Annealing, to intelligently schedule jobs using hard and soft rules in conjunction with configurable parameters to minimise overall costs, maximise service delivery margins, and reduce response times.

Real schedule optimisation packages select the best mobile worker for each job based on skills, geography, and existing jobs, while also considering required response time, and other configured parameters. They continuously reshuffle the schedule to create the most efficient, least costly version possible, all the while automatically accounting for schedule changes and exceptions.

 

Scheduling optimisation isn’t about manually scheduling jobs, or filling white space based on some basic, hard rules. Real-time or intraday schedule optimisation is about intelligent automation and is absolutely necessary for complex field service operations.

ServiceScheduling, and our Optimisation on DemandTM product, have been proven by our customers to yield:

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• 15-50% productivity improvement of mobile workers based on intelligently, continuously optimising the schedule for decreased response times to customers
• Up to 45% increase in SLA compliance because the optimisation algorithms can account for required response time in the scheduling decision in real time
• Between 25-50% increase in mobile worker efficiency, including decreased cycle time and reduced travel time yielding improved customer satisfaction and service delivery margins

• Ability to process IoT alerts without manual intervention [/unordered_list]

   

What’s more important to understand about real algorithm based schedule optimisation?

It’s intelligent!

The algorithms give your team the power of ‘big data analytics’. It’s using your data, creating schedules and learning throughout the process, continuously re-crunching the data, continuously re-optimising, continuously improving the schedules, productivity and efficiency, without your team spending hours manually analysing and manually decided how the data impacts your operations.

Artificial intelligence based schedule optimisation is the turbo boost that your organisation needs to get around that curve fastest, at the least cost, to win, for your customer!

See Through the Smoke Though 

Given the obvious benefits to artificial intelligence based schedule optimisation, like ServiceScheduling, why aren’t all organisations, no matter the size or complexity, using the technology?

Good question...

There are several misconceptions worth addressing. Schedule Optimisation is hard to implement. No, schedule optimisation is not hard to implement. It can absolutely be deployed on time and on budget and maintain a long term return on investment.

What’s critical is working with a vendor that understands your operations, as well as what it takes to manage a mobile workforce themselves.

Development is required to support you unique business requirements.

Development is expensive and take a long time. The software should be configurable; it shouldn’t require development to deploy and it absolutely shouldn’t require IT resources to maintain basic changes in the business going forward.

Cloud first.

The software should be available in the cloud, to reduce costs and streamline security, or on premise if your security and privacy policies dictate an on premise deployment.

No software is future proof.

Software should support the evolution of your business. It needs to seamlessly and intelligently support scheduling and dispatching of any mobile worker, employed or contracted. It should support full mobilisation of processes, even those that differ by job or customer.

 

It should integrate the latest technologies like the Internet of Things (IOT) and M2M, to support new business opportunities such as proactive or outcomes based service offerings. ServicePower combined out entire platform in one easy to deploy, easy to pay for model, ServicePower Unity, for exactly this reason. It enables your team to use functionality as and when it’s needed by the business.

It’s hard to change vendors.

It doesn’t matter if you already use software to manage your mobile workforce. Safe passage programs exist, and schedule optimisation should be capable of being used in a plug and play model, to provide that turbo boost missing from existing software systems such as ServiceMax, Salesforce,  MS Dynamics or SAP.

ServiceScheduling and Optimisation on DemandTM can be used in conjunction with these software packages to improve the schedule  optimisation (or lack thereof) of what your team has already deployed.

A complete change out isn’t required.

ServicePower has architected its platform so that it can be deployed alongside industry standard CRM and ERP packages, improving the schedules generated such that you, too, can supercharge your field operations.

As an example, one of our clients, already on another FSM platform, was able to generate a 24% increase in productivity and a 29% return on investment by implementing ServiceScheduling. Our team at ServicePower has worked tirelessly to create a mobile workforce management software platform which ‘turbo boosts’ our client’s mobile workforce operations- maximising productivity and customer satisfaction, and achieving real ROI, easily, and quickly. It produces real results regardless of what other software our product must work in conjunction with to achieve those ]results.

We guarantee it.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Marne Martin CEO of ServicePower argues that to be a thoroughbred amongst your competitors you must seek out the best-in-breed technologies...

Spring is the start of the racing season in some parts of the United States, especially in Kentucky where the Kentucky Derby, the first race of the Triple Crown, is run the first Saturday of May.

The 2015 race was historic.

American Pharaoh, a horse owned by an Egyptian immigrant, with half a tail, took the Triple Crown on Saturday, June 7, 2015 by winning the last and longest of the Triple Crown races, the mile and a half Belmont Stakes.

He’s only the 12th horse in history to ever win all three races: The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the longest, the Belmont Stakes. And, he won that last race decidedly, taking it in 2:26:65 minutes and 5 ½ lengths ahead of the 8 horse field, the fastest Belmont since 2001 and 6th fastest time since Affirmed ran it in 2:26 4/5.

Only Secretariat, the legendary race horse featured in the movie Secretariat in 2010, ran the Belmont faster at 2:24 by 31 lengths in 1973.

The Pharaoh stands happily at stud now at Ashford, a 2,200-acre farm in Versailles, Kentucky, where, even as unproven, first-year stallion, he commands a record $200,000 stud fee. Thoroughbreds are athletes in every sense of the word.

They train for years and face stiff competition. Some of them are born with an edge, like Secretariat, whom had a larger than average heart rumoured to have contributed to his racing success. But, most winners are the product of preparation and execution including the latest, best tools and technology. Field service organisation are exactly the same.

 

We must focus on preparing our people and executing seamlessly by enabling ourselves with the tools and technology that ensure success.

Out of the gate, we must seek out the best in breed field resources. New technologies like social, mobile, cloud and IoT are second nature to the emerging millennial workforce. Find field technicians comfortable with new technologies and provide them with complementary tools which improve their personal success. Collaboration tools like video chat, mobile applications and wearables help them help your customers. Satisfied field resources, trained to use their technology, with access to tools and information to get the job done will increase your first time fix rates and customer satisfaction.

To beat the competition down the stretch, we must execute flawlessly by enabling ourselves with the best tools and technology. Mobile workforce management software is not optional. I think most enterprise level organisations, with several hundred or thousands of field resources get this.

But the necessity of scheduling technology is still nebulous for some small or medium sized enterprises. Every business, no matter the size absolutely can benefit from real time route and schedule optimisation, mobile dispatch and field service management software. There are many options for route optimisation, but not all are the same.

While some vendors offer ‘scheduling’, that doesn’t necessarily mean they offer real time, intra-day route optimisation like ServicePower. ServicePower has invested significant effort into enhancing our scheduling software, filing 4 patents on Quantum Annealing, the first new optimisation algorithm in decades, which offers all businesses more efficient, faster route optimisation by harnessing the cloud and distributed computing.

 

For those small, medium and even large enterprises whom do not or cannot deploy a full on MWFM software, Optimization on DemandTM released this summer provides improve productivity and reduced costs without a full workforce management software deployment. Optimization On Demand™ enables field service organisations to book jobs for customers, then pass a set of appointments to ServicePower to optimize, on demand, into the best, least costly order.

Optimization On Demand™ provides a more intelligent tool set, without the expenditure of an entire workforce management or field service optimisation software solution. NEXUS FS™ provides field service organisations of any size an enterprise quality, wholly configurable, cloud-based field service management solution with a comprehensive mobile application.

It supports work order management, dispatch, scheduling, inventory management, time sheet reporting and geolocation, enabling focus on providing high quality service to customers, while benefiting from productivity improvements.

Technology is available/accessible at any level of business operations and is the key to winning the race, beating the competition. To cross the finish line, use of technology is key.

Optimised scheduling, mobility and field service management are all critical components of mobile workforce management software. But, to cross that line, field service organisations must deploy collaborative, operational intelligence and real time control consoles to monitor ongoing operations from across the enterprise.

Monitoring what’s happening today ensures high compliance levels and happy customers. Mining the data, using custom scorecards and predictive analytics enables teams to manage work, coach staff and fine tune processes to get over the finish line today, setting up a successful tomorrow. Do all this, and your organisation will have also won the Triple Crown.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Marne Martin CEO of ServicePower gives us her insight into why the company continues to focus on evaluating and developing the latest technologies for field service...

Disruptive new, connected technologies are changing the workforce management industry, by leap and bounds.

ServicePower Technologies Plc, is incorporating the latest in technology innovations into its leading field management software solutions. These new technologies, including social, mobile, cloud, analytics, IoT and M2M, and collaboration, drive efficiencies and productivity, reduce costs and increase first time fix rates. Most importantly, they transform workforce management to improve customer satisfaction, recognized as the overall measurement of success.

Schedule optimisation is the cornerstone of workforce management software, and the key on which the success of operations rely. Without real optimisation, the software won’t deliver on its ROI promises. There are generally three types of scheduling approaches: 

1. Basic scheduling: Managers build and manage a schedule manually, using no logic to decide the best tech or the best place on a schedule for a job.
2. Automated/Simple Rules-Based Scheduling: Simple, rules based systems, including computerised logic automatically builds a schedule, filling an open slot on the schedule, with no reshuffling of existing jobs to achieve a less costly schedule.
3. Intelligent Route Optimisation, as offered by ServicePower.  The schedule is built automatically based on configurable parameters and sophisticated optimisation algorithms to minimise costs, maximise margins, reduce response times and improve customer satisfaction, while ensuring that the best field tech is assigned with the right skills and parts. It also re-optimises the schedule in order to reduce costs.Place your list items here

ServicePower pioneered true intelligent, configurable route optimisation,  providing its ServiceScheduling software since the late nineties. We’ve continuously enhanced the engine which is offered through competitive partners as well. In 2015, we incorporated a modern Management Console which provides managers the ability to monitor key metrics, scheduled jobs, staff location and collaborate with remote team members.

We’ve enhanced lat/long travel matrix capabilities, long and complex job functionality, as well as crew and third party scheduling, and are working on evolving our scheduling algorithms to the next generation in artificial intelligence technology.

We’ve improved planning and forecasting using the latest map layering technology and coupled it with a true, non-production modelling environment and robust, cloud self-service Business Intelligence to ensure results.

Most importantly, we’ve realised that at times integration budgets or timelines stand in the way of deployment. Optimisation as a Service (OaaS), our newest product, provides enterprises and SMBs alike the power of true, intelligent, automated, route optimisation, in the cloud and on demand, by offering schedule optimisation as a service, priced transactionally. For field service organisations that want the productivity and cost savings of optimised routing, but don’t necessarily require the power of continuous optimisation, OaaS enables them to book jobs, optimise them, creating the best, least costly schedule available.

OaaS enables any organisation, even SMBs which previously were priced out of the technology, to benefit from real optimisation, moving past manual or simple rules based solutions. Likewise, enterprises looking to supplement existing ERP or CRM solutions without a full workforce management software deployment, or those with sales, stocking, or depot work not requiring travel, will also have the option of utilising OaaS.  OaaS will revolutionise how route and schedule optimisation is deployed.

We’ve also extended our M2M Connected Service product through a partnership with UK-based Concirrus, a top 10 Platform-as-a-Service UK company, and named by Gartner in its report: Cool Vendor in the Internet of Things 2015.   Concirrus adds cloud based IoT services to our scheduling software, creating new opportunities in the insurance sector and other industries with high levels of early IoT adopters, as well as new countries around the world. Additional partnerships are also under discussion in interesting new segments of IoT and application development.

We’ve enhanced ServiceMobility, our cross-platform mobile application, with additional payment and pricing features, estimates, product catalogues real time collaboration and most importantly, configurable, rules based forms. Rules provide the ability to rapidly define when data or forms are to be visible to a technician on a job-by-job basis, deploying new strategies in the field without code changes.

On the back of OaaS and ServiceMobility,  ServicePower launched Nexus FS, in September, providing the same mobile features with a SaaS business management portal that any business, from enterprise to SMB, can use to manage customers, vendors, jobs, and field employees. Combined with OaaS, those enterprises seeking a true end-to-end mobile workforce management solution can rely on ServicePower as a single source vendor for all field service operations requirements.

ServicePower is continuously evaluating new technologies to ensure that clients achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction today, as well as future proofing our workforce management software so it supports our clients tomorrow as well. In 2015, our new products and partnerships are leading the way in technology innovation for field service businesses.

 

---

 

Be social and share this article

Resource Type: White Paper
Published by: Click Software
Title: The Cloud: Up where customer service for the field belongs
Download: Click here to download the white paper
By downloading you agree to the T&Cs listed available here

Synopsis:

The Harris Interactive Customer Experience Impact report revealed that 86% of consumers have quit doing business with a company because of a poor customer experience—up 59% in four years. Other research has revealed it takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience, whilst 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with the same organization again. This white paper discusses how leveraging cloud solutions to optimise mobile workforces can improve the experiences of customers while lowering operational and IT costs. More field service management software is now available in the Cloud making it more accessible for SMEs and an alternative to heavy IT investments for large service organisations

Overview:

Customer complaints: What you hear is only the tip of the Iceberg. Many service companies don’t realize it when service levels are running low. In an increasingly savvy and connected market where information is readily available and easily accessible, customer service is often the only discerning difference between competing businesses. Investing in customer satisfaction is not only important but imperative for the long term survival of businesses especially where commoditisation has taken place

• Process improvement – to ensure prompt customer service and correct resource assignments
• Workforce development – to give the staff the opportunity to learn new skills
• Automation – rather than relying on error-prone and time-consuming manual processes
• Cultural changes – creating a working environment that stimulates the entire staff

Field personnel: you most valuable players

Only with real-time data can everyone shine. Providing real-time data across the entire organization is key to enhancing the customer experience. All levels of the service organization need actionable information to enhance how efficiently the field-service team operates and to improve experiences delivered to customers.

Silver linings within the Cloud

Cloud-based solutions open new doors for field service companies of all sizes by allowing for the quick, flexible adoption of new technologies that previously proved to be too expensive, risky and time-consuming to deploy.

Delivered via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, cloud solutions provide several advantages over traditional on-premise solutions: inlcluding PAYG, rapid deployment, immediate ROI and free upgrades. In field workforce management, cloud-based solutions typically allow companies to achieve productivity gains of up to 20% and return on their investment within 12 months. The cloud approach gives businesses the opportunity to replace high, up-front capital infrastructure expenses with low, predictable costs, while also delivering other key benefits:

The service delivery chain

Cloud-based mobile workforce management solutions cover every step of the service chain—from planning and forecasting, to real-time intelligent scheduling, shift management, mobility and execution—underpinned by extensive user-defined analytics and dashboards to provide clear and intuitive reports. Optimised scheduling: Advanced resource scheduling and optimisation tools provide the main interface for dispatchers, supervisors and managers. Service companies can increase the efficiency of their workforce with by combining a powerful cloud-based scheduling and optimisation engine with strong decision support tools.

• Multiple scheduling options and policies
• Real-time optimisation immediately responsive to changes
• Optimised scheduling using multiple factors, people, crews, contractors, assets and complexities
• Street-level route optimisation
• Intelligent and flexible appointment booking
• Workflow dispatch and progress updates

[/unordered_list] 

Mobility that connects entire teams. 

Mobile enterprise field execution software should allow both field workers and dispatchers the convenience of real-time communications and full end-to-end visibility. By using real-time mobility, field workers can update dispatchers; they can update customers, thereby benefiting everyone with true connectivity and better productivityReal-time information, when and where you need it. View jobs, service histories, customer information.[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Mobile solutions should be compatible leading devices and operating systems, through all service workflows, and with 24/7 availability
• Mobility is driven by apps. Don’t reinvent the wheel – build your business process using ready-made apps without having to code or go through a lengthy upgrade process
• The enterprise mobility solution must offer a robust and scalable infrastructure that can adapt to the needs of the business and its users.
• Cutting-edge capabilities include artificial intelligence and automation that anticipate and act proactively upon user’s needs

Real-time and historic service performance

Look at the entire service delivery chain - before, during and after the moment of service - and the collected business metrics that result from each moment. Make key performance metrics delivers strategic value to service organizations by placing graphical, easy-to-understand key performance metrics directly into the hands of executives and service managers. Each user chooses which actionable data to report based on their role and business challenges, from the C-suite to front line supervisors.

---

Click here to download the white paper

---

Click here to find out more about Click Software in the Field Service Directory

 

 

---

 

Be social and share this white paper

Software provider Fast Lean Smart (FLS) have recently announced that they have secured a significant new customer win in the form of Mitie’s pest control division.

German owned FLS who operate their UK division for their Reading office are providers of specialist mobile workforce management and scheduling software and in Mitie they have won the business of the UK’s third largest provider of pest control services. Having seen consistent organic growth greater than their peers within the last decade Mitie were in the market to support yet further development and growth by implementing optimisation solutions for both routing and task scheduling as part of a drive to improve their service offering by responding quicker to customer call outs.

With a client base that encompasses both residential and commercial clients, Mitie offer a ‘one-stop-shop’ service offering that covers everything and anything to do with pest prevention and eradication. They maintain their high standards of service by undertaking all services in-house and as a business they employ a nationwide field force of pest technicians.

Commenting on the agreement with FLS, Peter Trotman, Mitie Pest Control Managing Director said ‘Our success has brought us many challenges, especially in organising resource to meet our objectives which include continuously improving customer service, but also to reduce operational costs. We already differentiate our services through advanced management information and customer portals and we are now embarking on a dynamic enterprise to interface a route planning and resource optimisation tool to further our leading edge technology”.

Trotman added “As part of a year long evaluation of potential vendors, we completed a successful pilot with FLS which proved FLS VISITOUR technology was flexible to meet our requirements and the ideal choice. We are now pleased to appoint FLS as supplier and implementation partner for this immensely exciting project from which we already know the opportunity for performance improvement is significant”.

Jeremy Squire, FLS UK Managing Director, also commented saying “FLS are pleased to welcome Mitie Pest Control to our growing family of UK customers, the mix of routine visits, booked appointments and requirement to quickly react to emergency callouts make excellent use of FLS VISITOUR real-time scheduling capability. We look forward to making this deployment a showcase for the dramatic efficiency gains achievable and the ease of configuring our technology to meet unique customer needs.”

 

Enterprise Mobility expert, Jon Vass of Telogis, claims that instead of cutting back on services businesses should instead look to optimise their mobile workforces...

With the right technologies an organisation can save hundreds of thousands of pounds by simply working more efficiently. Route optimisation, improved vehicle maintenance and mobile technology can provide significant savings on the bottom line and give a competitive edge.

Pundits claim that Britain's 'Great Recession' started in the spring of 2008 and ended in the summer of 2009. Today many would argue differently, for figures show that businesses are still in slow recovery. The key factor over the last few years - and possibly the biggest - is that consumers, companies and the state are all locked in a race to straighten out their finances. Which means each of these will be trying to reduce costs.

Of course, for many businesses it is easy to reduce costs by looking at expenditure and simply cutting back, reducing staff and overheads, even moving premises. However, this is often reactionary and short term and does not allow for business growth or changes in customer demand.

For businesses with mobile workforces there is another way to reduce costs – and this involves optimisation of current resources with technology. With today’s advances in web based applications, investing in a business solution no longer means purchasing hardware, software and expensive support services. Solutions are now readily available that can be deployed in the field and accessed securely on the Internet without investing in costly infrastructure.

Optimising resources

For a business with a mobile workforce, the costs that need close scrutiny are the driver’s time and vehicle routing and maintenance. While a professional operations manager can plan and oversee driver routes, vehicle running and maintenance, a computer can do a much better job of analysis and planning.

An example is route optimisation. A simple route from A to B can be easily planned. Add into that route several drop off points and immediately the number of routes becomes more complex. Factors such as different average speed, traffic congestion, access and roadworks and immediately fuel costs will fluctuate. Planning so many variations to optimise routes is a task that a computer programme is made to crunch through.

 

And it’s not simply a matter of daily management and planning. Monitoring job completion over the air and comparing this with the plan is key. Ensuring regular vehicle checks can also reduce costly maintenance bills. Capturing such data and analysing it for meaningful intelligence can be easily managed using mobile technologies.

 

These arguments make even more sense when you quantify them with real figures. The average costs quoted for a driver and vehicle is £50,000 a year, a not insignificant amount. By utilising effective technologies to optimise route plans and eliminate unnecessary journeys a business could reduce these costs by 10-20%. This could equate to a saving of between £250k - £500k a year for a fleet of 50 vehicles or more. Definite food for thought.

Choosing the right technologies and provider

The figures easily support the case for why a business should adopt technology for its route optimisation and mobile workforce management tools – the second important decision is how to execute it.

Such has been the rapid innovations in the past few years that there are now many business applications available on the market that capture driver data, increase efficiencies and reduce costs. And many of these solutions are readily available, plug and play offerings.

Software available as a cloud based solution or software-as-a-service means that a business can benefit from the latest technologies, built-in security and the assurance that upgrades are automatically implemented. More users and increased storage capacity can be easily accommodated with no disruption to daily business and without big additional costs.

There are also two other important factors to consider. Choosing the right professional services partner is key to ensure that the technologies adopted are right for the business. This means selecting a first class provider with proven industry credentials that can provide responsive support both at start up and ongoing. A rapid start up minimises costs and ensures a fast return on the investment.

The second factor is to choose systems from one provider and on one platform. Selecting different solutions and supplier platforms can result in costly integration issues and difficulty in sharing data, reducing the ability to use important intelligence to optimise resources.

There is no doubt that the power and versatility of technologies available today, coupled with the ubiquity of fast Internet connectivity, means that organisations are now able to harness enterprise-grade solutions for managing their mobile resources. Businesses that choose to adopt these technologies can quickly reap the benefits of these developments by optimising their workforce and reducing costs.

Following a three step approach will ensure business success; by selecting a proven industry supplier, adopting a single platform for connected vehicle services and thirdly ensuring that the data is used for future planning as well as resource optimisation.

 

 

mplsystems has announced a new, integrated field service management solution that directly address what they perceive as the three main barriers to field service efficiency: combining disparate IT systems; enabling the scheduling of reactive jobs alongside planned tasks; and solving ongoing issues relating to lack of visibility of activities in the field.

The systems key functionality includes a unified service desk portal, automatic and dynamic planning and scheduling of service activities, as well as mobile communications for field personnel through dedicated apps for all leading smart phones and tablets.

The solution is particularly easy-to-use, supporting a unique combination of automated scheduling with dynamic drag-and-drop capabilities to enable planners to optimise schedules and manage their reactive tasks in real-time. When integrated with a comprehensive service desk portal and updates via mobile apps, organisations will be able to unlock significant productivity and efficiency savings with a true, real-time view of all current maintenance activities across the business.

 

 

 

Bridging the disconnect

“Until now field service management systems have always suffered from a disconnect between the service desk, planning and what’s actually going on in the field. The result is that it has proved virtually impossible for service management firms to react quickly to customer emergency jobs and change requests as the planning function is burdened by overly complex scheduling tools that make it difficult to schedule such reactive jobs in real-time. Our new service management solution directly address this challenge,” commented Paul White, CEO at mplsystems.

“And despite the great advances in smart phone technology, the reality for most service organisations is still that their field workforce is largely invisible. That’s a real concern given that the top complaint from service maintenance customers is that technicians, when on site, can’t resolve issues. By integrating our service desk portal with both automated scheduling and field updates via mobile apps, we can make sure that field service organisations have both the real-time information dynamic planning tools they need to solve this problem.”

The new solution differs with traditional service scheduling tools that are often over-complex with endless menus, options, parameters and screens.

Instead the mplsystems solution features a simplified interface with three core drag-and-drop presentation options that enable schedule optimisation: a dynamic map view that streamlines the scheduling and allocation of tasks, a field service engineer’s calendar view showing all jobs and locations, and a complete list of jobs that can be filtered using a range of parameters.

These three views can be toggled separately or displayed concurrently on a single screen. When the service desk receives a call, all service desk staff need to do is just drag and drop the task onto the appropriate field engineer’s schedule. This action updates diaries and transfers all relevant task information to the engineer’s mobile Android, iOS or Windows Mobile device.

mplsystems vs maximo?

Statutory Support Services, a specialist building services maintenance group, chose the new mplsystems solution to gain a single view of all its field activities.

“With mplsystems we’ve been able to automate around 50 percent of the manual scheduling tasks that we had to do with our previous system, and we’re already seeing improvements in terms of our KPIs and SLAs. Our schedulers are no longer overloaded with endless menus, options, parameters and screens. Instead they get to look at just three simple views – a dynamic map that streamlines the drag-and-drop scheduling and allocation of tasks, a field service engineer’s calendar view, and a complete list of jobs that can be filtered using a range of parameters,” explained Adam Clarke, Statutory Support Services UK Limited’s Managing Director.

“The sheer simplicity of the system means that our staff simply need to drag-and-drop a task onto the appropriate field engineer’s schedule. This action updates diaries and transfers all relevant task information to the engineer’s mobile device. With the time saved, we can focus our helpdesk staff on the kind of added value tasks that other service companies simply don’t have the time to do.

“Thanks to increased SLA adherence and the ability of our new mplsystems implementation to respond effectively to reactive jobs and dynamic schedule optimisation, we’re expecting the mplsystems field service management solution to pay for itself within just six months,” he added. “When you factor in costs such as licencing and hardware costs for field mobile systems, we’re estimating that our cloud-based mplsystems technology solution will work out at around five times less expensive than our legacy enterprise Maximo-based scheduling system.”

mplsystems’ new end-to-end solution can be delivered either on premise or in the cloud, and provides field service organisations with a true real-time view of all their current maintenance and support activities across their entire operation. A full suite of field service management software allows businesses to create and customise exactly the level of functionality they need around their existing IT investments.