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Effectively managing the peaks and valleys in field service demand is one of the greatest challenges facing managers and executives across a broad array of market segments says Michael Blumberg, President & CEO of Blumberg Advisory Group, Inc.  Here, we publish the first part of extracts from his White Paper, "The Variable Workforce Model",  on how the momentum for freelance service technicians is building and potential solutions for managing them.

The Field Service Dilemma

Typically, temporary or contingent labour was utilised to support periods of peak demand: when there was a spike in new product sales or when brought about by seasonal issues. For example, a surge in installations or refreshes resulting from new product purchases required that the service organisation employ additional field service engineers (FSEs) to complete the installations in a timely manner.

However, relying on a temporary workforce to handle emergency maintenance was historically viewed as anathema to service executives within companies that sell equipment. This was because the FSEs were typically viewed as an extension of the sales team and thus vital to keeping the equipment operating and the customer happy. The conventional wisdom was that if equipment failed to operate properly then the customer would become irate, blame the manufacturer or reseller, and stop buying their products.

FSEs were considered to uniquely possess the specialised knowledge and skills required to resolve emergency issues. These skills took years to acquire and were difficult to replicate. How could emergency service be trusted to temporary employees with limited knowledge or experience with the product?  As a result, peaks in demand for emergency service were typically handled by asking FSEs to work overtime hours.

Setting the groundwork for the variable workforce

In the mid-1980s a number of service networks were created among like-minded service providers (e.g.  resellers, OEMs, etc.) to provide FSE coverage in geographic areas where their partners lacked specific skills sets: the beginning of the managed service provider concept.  Another driving force behind the decision to use contingent labour was the fact that the economics of hiring full-time personnel were not favourable. With margins declining, it was difficult for service providers to justify hiring additional personnel. Turning toward a network of vendors, subcontractors, and service companies to fill peaks in demand became a viable solution for many service providers.

 

In the 1990s outsourcing of non-core activities became popular with a number of prominent original equipment manufacturers such as Cisco, NetApp, IBM, and HP who outsourced non-strategic field service functions to Third Party Maintenance companies.

The recessions of 2001 and 2008 led to layoffs and hiring freezes across a wide array of industries. Service providers could not risk having situations where field service engineers were not available to support customers’ requests. Rather than keep non-essential workers on the payroll, companies realised they could reduce operating expenses and lower overhead costs by hiring field service engineers on a per call basis; as consultants or freelancers.

The freelance model has now become main stream within the field service industry. It gives service providers the ability to manage field service delivery through a variable workforce model. Maintaining a field service workforce on a full-time basis represents a short-term, fixed cost for service providers. With field service experiencing its own peaks and valleys in demand, a service provider can now convert a short-term fixed cost into a variable expense.

Options for building a variable workforce
[quote float="right"]Field service companies have a number of options available to them for obtaining variable field service labour.

Today, companies who support or maintain large sets of geographically dispersed technology and environments such as ATM machines in retail locations, Wi-Fi access points in coffee shops, or Internet of Things enabled technologies, have a number of options available to them for obtaining variable field service labour. These include: [ordered_list style="decimal"]

 

1. Implement Master Service Agreement (MSA) with one or more companies. This usually requires the OEM hand-off all on-site service requests to the Field Service Organisation who is responsible for managing their own workforce. While this is one of the simplest ways to obtain access to a contingent labour force, it is often the most expensive; particularly if the FSO is using its own workforce to perform the on-site request. This is because the FSO’s price per service call usually takes into account direct labour costs, plus parts, overhead, risk and profit.
   Furthermore, the FSO may not be able to provide their client with full visibility, accountability and control into the service delivery process. Basically, the client is alerted to when a call is dispatched and when it is completed, not to what occurs in between.
2. Manage subcontractors on their own. Another option is for a company to build its own variable workforce through a “Direct-To-Tech” approach. This requires that a company hire independent contractors either directly or through a staffing company, or they can reclassify existing full time FSEs as independents. Reclassification could create problems from a legal and financial perspective.[quote float="left"]The Direct-To-Tech model can be very successful but only if the nature of the work is truly independent contracting, not a second class worker.

    

   More importantly, setting up and managing a variable workforce labour pool requires an investment in mobile communication and collaboration technology, as well as new processes, procedures, and training for both management and dispatch staff.
   Companies who don’t approach this challenge strategically often end up with ad hoc systems and processes that are cumbersome and unscalable. All too often, companies end up blaming the subcontracted or freelance workforce when the real root cause of the issue is a lack of robust and scalable systems that lead to mismanagement.
3. Adopt a “Sharing Economy” model. Companies who are willing and able to manage teams of individual workers can turn to a sharing economy model. In this scenario, a company would use an Internet platform, provided by a 3rd party technology vendor, to recruit, on-board, train, dispatch, manage, and pay individual contractors. There are substantial cost savings to a company who is willing to pursue this course of action. Improvements in service quality and productivity are also possible .Freelance contractors are typically more engaged and motivated since their income is directly proportional to the quality of work performed and number of assignments they accept. More importantly, it avoids the risk of misclassifying workers. Freelancers who make themselves available through this type of labour model have made the decision to become a small business. In their work as independent contractors they have the ability to decide how many companies they contract with and which types of jobs they select, how and when they go about performing their work and how to best use their own tools and equipment.
   [/ordered_list]

All things being equal, we believe the sharing economy model offers the optimal solution for obtaining access to a variable workforce. This is provided the company using this model is prepared to engage in the necessary leg work required to manage teams of independent contractors through a Freelance Management System (FMS) platform.

 

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Watch out for Part 2 of this White Paper. Download the version here

 

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Best practices for knowledge sharing in field service are understood but too few companies are allocating the necessary resources, warns John Ragsdale, vice president of technology and social research at the US's Technical Services Industry Association

Ragsdale was revealing the findings in the  TSIA's  annual research: The State of Knowledge Management: 2015.  “It is frustrating when  best practices for knowledge management, such as knowledge-centred support are understood, but companies refuse to allocate the necessary resources. I continue to hear companies struggling with problems we know how to solve, but there isn’t support from executives to provide the funding, staffing and cultural support required to be successful."

But there’s hope as some companies are building modern knowledge-sharing platforms to help techs access the best information available, from any device. Here, Ragsdale explains to Derek Korte, editor of Field Service Digital, how to build a next-gen knowledge base that techs will actually use.

Whose job is it to build a digital, “virtual” knowledge base?
Ragsdale: That may depend on who has the “intelligent search religion” in your company. Some very large companies are hiring a new position —knowledge czar — who reports to the CIO and ensures each department captures and shares knowledge amount peers.

But full-time resources are rare within support and field service companies, so multiple employees dedicate time to nurture the knowledge program. The starting point is to identify all of the content sources across your enterprise — and across the Web — with valuable content to include in the search indexing, then prioritise each source for inclusion.[quote float="left"]The starting point is to identify all of the content sources across your enterprise — and across the Web.

 

Isn’t that complex?
Ragsdale: A simple way to do this is to ask service techs which content sources they find valuable. Field service leaders will likely be surprised at the variety of sources employees use. Look at the search platform analytics to identify content and to find articles that need to be updated or removed. Then, use relevancy analysis to understand the most-used content. Some search products may be able to index everything at once, while others may require some custom filters or integrations to access every repository.

What companies have successfully put this plan into action?
Ragsdale: During my recent Technology Services World presentation, I highlighted three TSIA member companies that have embraced this concept with great results: Tricentis,which sells software testing tools; Broadsoft, a provider of unified communications and collaboration software and services; and Informatica, which delivers enterprise data integration and management software powering analytics for big data and cloud services.

Each company offers an elegant user interface with a single search field that retrieves content from multiple sources. They also offer filtering options to help employees find exactly what they need. It’s a much better option that scrolling through pages of results. In general, once the virtual knowledge base approach is implemented, users will respond. Employees will conduct more searches, access and download more documents, and spend more time overall on the site. That not only helps employees become more productive, but it also streamlines customer self-service, which has huge cost savings implications.

Is a smart knowledge management strategy the best lever at a manager’s disposal to fight against the looming talent gap?
Ragsdale: I think service managers have a few levers to pull (scheduling automation, mobile devices, remote access, among others), but knowledge is definitely a critical element. We continue to hear that large numbers of senior techs are retiring in the next two to three years, so now is the time to proactively begin capturing their hard-earned knowledge any way possible.

Nearly half of field service respondents said a 20-30 percent improvement would be possible, while more than a quarter pegged improvement at 30 percent or more. The results from our latest research, The State of Knowledge Management: 2015, make clear that employees and managers understand the potential value of knowledge.

Why isn’t that potential realised?
Ragsdale: In my report, I talk about the key obstacles to realising this potential, including insufficient resources, broken or outdated processes, and the lack of a sharing culture. I also talk about how to incorporate some key knowledge metrics into executive operational reviews, to at least introduce the subject and hopefully place it on the exec’s radar.

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This feature first appeared on the US Field Service Digital  website and is republished here with kind permission

When it comes to assessing the link between productivity and technology should the figures governments are concerned about be re-evaluated, asks Professor Andy Neely of the Cambridge Service Alliance.

There’s been much debate in recent months about the productivity paradox - put simply there’s a long standing concern that technology, particularly information technology, does not seem to deliver the productivity gains that might be expected.

This concern has resurfaced in the UK, with the Government raising questions about why the UK’s productivity has not grown as much as other countries. In fact, George Osborne recently called the UK’s low productivity growth “the challenge of our time”.

The same topic came up in a recent email discussion with colleagues from ISSIP - the International Society for Service Innovation Professionals, this time prompted by an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Silicon Valley Doesn’t Believe US Productivity is Down”.  In essence the Wall Street Journal argument was that developments in technology are not captured in the Government’s productivity figures - apps that help people find restaurants more quickly or hail cabs from their phones clearly improve the efficiency with which we can do things.

Doing more with less is a classic definition of productivity - so these apps must be improving productivity,  argues the Wall Street Journal (and those it quotes - including Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist).

While I accept the argument that apps and associated technologies allow us to do more with less, I think there’s a need to unpack the relationship between these developments and measures of productivity more carefully.

Traditionally governments have measured labour productivity in terms of GDP per hour worked. As technology replaces labour, GDP stays the same or increases, while labour hours go down - hence productivity increases.

 

However, there’s an interesting new phenomenon which complicates the picture.

Take, for example, Uber. I’m a fan of Uber - the app is great. It’s convenient. I’ve never had a bad service from an Uber driver. I love the fact that I can rate drivers and they can rate customers at the end of journeys. I love the fact that the cost of the ride gets charged to my credit card and the receipt automatically emailed to me. But I also love Uber because it is cheaper - I pay less for a Uber car than I do for a black cab in London. Better service, pleasant drivers, and lower prices - what’s not to like?

Other firms have similar business models – think Amazon or Airbnb. Still others provide me a service for free – Google and TripAdvisor -  and don’t charge me for the information they provide, instead making their money through third parties.

When talking about productivity - or the lack of productivity - we need to think about the economic impact of these cheaper and/or free services.

Lower prices to consumers must mean lower GDP. The efficiency gains are there, but they are not being captured in productivity gains because the benefits are being passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices, rather than captured in the official GDP statistics.

Maybe a more nuanced discussion about productivity is needed where we look at both sides of the equation:  increases in value and hence GDP, and increases in efficiency reflected in lower costs to consumers.

 

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Field Nation, the US company which has developed an on-line marketplace matching independent service contractors with  project management demands, has secured a $30 million investment led by Susquehanna Growth Equity.

Field Nation has been self-funding since its launch in 2008. It has reported rapid growth of 65% a year and during the past year it has connected more than 1,000 organisations with its network of over 65,000 registered contractors.

The company's on-line marketplace connects independent service contractors and companies needing to get on-site work done. It allows service companies and distributed enterprises to directly procure, manage, pay, report and optimise labour requirements. . The broader platform extends the marketplace through Field Nation Complete, a SaaS solution that delivers a complete work management solution when organisations require the combined experience of their internal and external workforce. It also allows contractors to market their skill sets, find new projects, engage with each other, complete work and get paid quickly.

“We have experienced tremendous growth and success as a small company, and now we’re prepared to start the next chapter of the Field Nation story,” said founder and CEO Mynul Khan. “With the financial support and experience from Susquehanna Growth Equity, we will rapidly accelerate our efforts to introduce Field Nation to organizations of all sizes so they can tap the full breadth of our marketplace and get more work done.” This growth-capital investment validates the business model, strategy and disruptive technology of the Field Nation platform, says the company.

The company plans to increase product development and promotion of its SaaS-based total workforce management solution Field Nation Complete and expand its service offerings into new vertical markets.

 

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Investment in new smart mobile technology pays off for Kings Security Systems with improved productivity and service levels and elimination of over half a million paper records.

Kings Security Systems, the large Bradford-based independent national security services provider, has boosted efficiency and performance of its field service technicians by deploying Field Link, the scheduling and mobile workforce management technology from mobile network operator EE which incorporates Aeromark's Optimatics technology.

Kings has increased the productivity of its 300 field-based service engineers by 25%, improved customer service levels by 30% and  replaced over half a million paper records with automated electronic documentation.

The company had already been using automated scheduling and mobile applications for over 5 years, but in January 2014, it decided to investigate what improvements could be gained by using the next generation of technology.
After a comprehensive selection process to upgrade its existing systems and improve performance, Kings chose EE Field Link, powered by Aeromark's Optimatics mobile workflow management solution, to replace a number of legacy systems used by its field service division.

Kings’ Engineers cover a wide geographic area, and the reach and reliability of EE’s mobile network combined with the offline capabilities of the Mobile app ensures total system availability. EE Field Link provides Kings with a single platform for dynamic real-time job scheduling, integrated mobile workflows, vehicle tracking and seamless integration with engineers’ devices. This system allows planners central visibility of engineers and jobs, meaning planners can manage the workforce quickly and efficiently. The system shows how many jobs are outstanding and closed, allowing greater visibility and helping Kings to keep its service level agreements with their customers.

Previously, King’s workforce was managed using a variety of solutions from different providers that proved unreliable, and prevented planners having full control over outstanding jobs and locations. The smart mobile technology provides a comprehensive solution that not only integrated with Kings’ existing business processes, but also allowed Kings to launch new processes and features that were previously undeliverable using the old systems.

"Before we started using the Field Link solution from EE and Aeromark, we had a similar system for dispatching calls electronically to engineers’ PDAs. However, Field Link has completely changed the way we work in that we can now see outstanding jobs at the site, or within a radius, improving our planning and boosting efficiency as we deliver an excellent service to our customers." Said Kerrell Cronly, Service Manager at Kings.

 

Within 3 months, Field Link has already helped reduce operational costs and enabled a quicker service delivery. "Since we have been using Field Link, we have seen an increase of over 1 job a day per engineer and a 30% increase in SLAs which is not a result of working longer but by working smarter," said Kerrell.

Steve Evans, Chief Operating Director at Kings said; "Our investment in this new technology was an essential part of our strategic plan. It will enable us to grow significantly with automated and streamlined processes that ensure the service we offer to our customers and our cost base are fully optimised. As a result of the success that the system has delivered for our service division, we have already rolled out the solution to all other divisions within the business."

Anthony King, Chief Executive Officer at Kings said; "EE and Aeromark have a unique technology and agile approach which not only delivered in the agreed timescales and costs but the results exceeded our expectations. That’s almost unheard of with large IT projects and credit goes to the combined team at EE, Aeromark and Kings who have dedicated their time to this project."

 

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Replacing a manual paper-based job scheduling system with JobWatch software from BigChange Apps, has enabled Sheffield based DP Doors to achieve greater productivity across its 23 strong mobile team. Revenue is up 25%, there is a doubling of first-time fix rates, fuel savings of £5,000 and a 15% reduction in adminstration. 

DP Doors is an industrial door specialist. It  manufactures, install, maintains and repairs fire doors, roller shutters, steel security doors, PVC strip curtains and crash doors. The family run business employs 42 employees, including 23 field based engineers, serving a nationwide blue-chip customer base. Projects come in all shapes and sizes, including huge doors that are 14m high and 6m wide.

The company prides itself on delivering the highest levels of service and response. Industrial doors are mission critical for customers including food companies who need to separate frozen and chilled areas and maintain the integrity, safety and security of their products.

DP doors were looking for a mobile workforce system to address two key issues within their operation. One was to achieve higher first-time-fix rates. Secondly the business wanted to eradicate the excess paperwork that was hindering productivity.

The company chose JobWatch from Big Change, after careful comparison against two other solutions. “We chose JobWatch as the team at BigChange really understood our business. They had something out-of-the-box that really fitted with our requirements. Plus the overall system offers great value - combining mobile, back office and real-time workforce tracking,” said Managing Director, Alan Bolsover.

Paper work reduction

The company used to take several sheets of paper to every single job (a method statement, risk assessment, vehicle check and job card). In addition drivers had to visit the office to collect job information, adding extra travel time to each day. JobWatch has simplified the workflow, replacing paper job cards with electronic worksheets on rugged mobile tablet. Engineers can access job information instantly wherever they are and travel from home straight to the first job of the day.

 

“At times we were were overwhelmed with paperwork and the manual admin that goes with it. It’s time that we could be spending selling, marketing and developing the business. Admin isn’t adding value,”  pointed out Bolsover.

Smarter scheduling

Smarter scheduling has eased the challenge of planning work for the 23 engineers to locations nationwide. It’s maximising billable time, avoiding unnecessary travel and making the back-office team far more productive. Real-time visibility is avoiding multiple calls to the mobile team to check on status or location.

JobWatch is also helping DP Doors with Health & Safety compliance - an area that’s crucial in this industry and at the top of the agenda for blue-chip clients. Engineers were failing to complete or return their daily driver checks to the office. The JobWatch mobile app now makes it easy for drivers to do their checks at the beginning of each day - and the app won’t let them start work without it. Faults or defects can be logged instantly, ensuring that the maintenance manager is alerted to manage them to resolution. In addition JobWatch is ensuring that risk assessments and method statements are just a click away on the mobile tablet.

Integrated invoicing

Integrated invoicing is invaluable, says Bolsover. It enables jobs to be invoiced as soon as they are completed. Engineers can capture photos on-site for proof-of-service and can be shared with customers.

“We were waiting days for job cards to come back. If a job was on a Monday, we wouldn’t get the paperwork back till Friday. This could have a real knock-on effect on cashflow. With JobWatch we don’t have to wait for anything to be returned to the office - there are no documents that could get lost. Plus we’re able to bill accurately for time spent on site. We’re also looking to start using JobWatch for our invoicing too.”

Finally, JobWatch is helping DP doors to reduce their fuel use, one of the highest costs incurred across the entire business. Drivers are receiving a tailored de-brief at the end of each working day, with friendly encouragement towards safe and responsible behaviours. Line managers can see which drivers are achieving the best MPG and can reward the team accordingly.

 

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Service Management Expo 2015 saw a number of excellent debates including a panel discussion that focused on the challenge of replacing an ageing workforce. As the millenials take over the work place, moderator Kris Oldand asked the panel just what will the changing face of field service look like?

The challenge for service companies was not so much the age of their current workforce but the aptitude and willingness to learn new skills, said Andy Beer, European Service director, Pitney Bowes. "As technology changes, the engineer's role may change from being field-based to carrying out remote diagnosis on a Help Desk. Regardless, they still need an underlying skill set and it's important those skills sets are up-to-date. Do they have the aptitude to learn and adapt?"

In field service, solutions are knowledge-based, pointed out Susannah Richardson, Marketing Director at mplsystems. "What is important is to get that knowledge documented - and your ageing, very experienced workforce can often be the best source for that. See it as an opportunity to get that valuable knowledge out of one engineer’s head and into the wider workforce. Once you've secured that knowledge, your service levels won’t drop if key staff leave or retire."

Formal, documented knowledge can also improve customer service, she added. "Once available, it can be used by the Help Desk engineers for remote diagnostics and repair, or even to guide customers on fixing problems themselves via a help area on your own website."

It is important that during the process of documenting knowledge, experienced engineers do not feel threatened, said Beer. "The solution is to show them you appreciate that knowledge and involve them in the process - such as sending them the final document for approval."

How important is technology in attracting tomorrow's engineers?

The consensus on the panel was that technology would play a key role in attracting the Millennials who will be the next generation of field service workers. As Professor Howard Lightfoot of Cranfield University School of Management said: "Young people don't think about technology, they just use it. They access everything digitally, including training and education."

 

Service companies need to remember that Millennials would also form a large part of their customer based in future said Lightfoot. "They'll expect a different sort of service and engineers will need training in soft skills. Managing clients and client behaviour, coping with complaints on a face-to-face basis will become an important part of the skill set."

A service sector that used modern technology would help attract the next generation and get buy-in from existing engineers when work processes were changing. "Giving engineers an iPad to work with wins hearts and minds," said Beer. "We found giving them permission to use the device in their personal lives made them excited and got them thoroughly engaged in the changes we were making in the business."

The sharing generation

Service companies could also benefit if they grasped the fact that the millennial generation, whether customers or engineers, are used to social media and sharing of information, remarked Richardson. "In the workplace, millennials will want to be part of a social community that shares information, interacts and is collaborative.  This generation are more likely to communicate via Instant Messaging than make a voice call. Millennial customers wouldn't be phased by requesting a service via an app, not via a call to the help desk. "

It might also drive earlier resolution of a problem, she added. "Technology enables a three-way web chat, for example, with the customer calling the help desk who then brings in a field-based engineer to discuss the problem."

Trusted advisor or sales person?

The panel was asked whether a new generation of engineers would be less resistant than older workers to the idea of leveraging their position as “trusted advisor” to become a “trusted sales advisor". All were adamant that while this might be appealing for service companies, there were also inherent risks.

"There is potentially a lot to be gained, but if the field engineer starts to act in a more overt sales fashion, there is also the risk of losing that trusted advisor status with the customer," commented Beer. "Field engineers see themselves as trusted advisers and fixers. Many will resist the ideal of becoming sales representatives and customers, indeed, can see through overt sales tactics. "

Richardson however, thought some engineers would welcome a sales/upselling role. "Incentivising engineers for sales rewards them monetarily, but can also be attractive from a career development point of view."

Technology for training

"Skills training needs to accept that there is a wide spectrum of workers, from those who are scared of a mouse to those comfortable with a smartphone,” remarked Professor Lightfoot. "Training is no longer just talking to people, it’s more interactive these days,” he added.

 

Baby steps and the gamification concept was the way forward, thought the panel with Dan Lancaster, Field Service Specialist with Telogis, advising "Set questions in a dynamic format. The process can be heavy at the start but you soon reach the point where you can get them to filling in questionnaires to test their skills levels."

Ageing workforce: crisis or opportunity?

Having already identified the need to interact with Millennial workers, each of the panel members were asked whether they considered if an ageing workforce represented a crisis (all that knowledge disappearing from the company) or an opportunity (with all those young people with a new outlook, enthusiastic about embracing the technology) that is going to be essential for service delivery over the next couple of decades.

"There are over 1 billion mobile devices out there: your workforce will be using them anyway, so tap into that mindset," urged Lightfoot.

"Technology is delivering the opportunity to document a vast amount of knowledge and get it out there to the wider workforce and customers," pointed out Richardson.

Finally, Lancaster added: "Younger people expect to be engaged in what they are doing, at work or play. So engage them. It's a fantastic opportunity to look at your operation in a different way."

So, in conclusion, our panel unanimously agreed that any potential crisis in terms of loss of expertise as older workers retired could be overcome and that service companies should explore the different aptitudes and mindset of a younger generation to drive process change and transform customer service strategies.

The face of field service is changing, but as with anything change can be both frightening and exciting at the same time. The trick is to walk the line in the middle so you are prepared for the pitfalls and ready to embrace the opportunities. Is your company up to the challenge?

 

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As we continue our exclusive serialisation of Advanced Field Service’s excellent Service Manager Handbook 2015/16 edition we turn our attention to agile resource scheduling…

You are also able to download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

It’s simple to manage a relatively small team of engineers with a limited number of jobs. But as your business grows, so do the scale and complexity of your resources.

However, the challenge of getting the properly skilled technician to the job with the minimum of fuss and overheads is not insurmountable. So when scheduling your field resources, how can you get it right?

Optimise travel times

Typically, around half of engineers’ time is spent (i.e. lost) in travelling to the customer’s site. Escalating fuel costs mean that long journeys also eat into your profit margins.

Clearly, optimising travel times has never been more important.

When new calls come in, you need to know your engineers’ present and future locations. Modern GPS navigation, route planning software and mapping tools have changed the rules for engineer allocation, helping your engineers reach customers via the quickest and/or shortest route. Don’t assume the usual route is the best one. Stay alert to incidents and planned roadworks that are causing hold-ups.

Your scheduling system should reduce planning time by suggesting and prioritising slots in the vicinity of the engineer’s base location and/or existing call locations, as well as finding the best slot for the job in line with SLA commitments.

Track your field team

Can you see at a glance which engineers are in the area and who is best placed to answer a new call or respond to an emergency? If, for any reason, an engineer cannot gain access to a customer’s site, is there another call locally that they can be redirected to?

Knowing your engineers’ whereabouts will help you react with agility and re-plan rapidly. You’ll also be able to monitor how long they’re spending on any particular job and check whether other work needs to be urgently re-planned.

Over time, having this data will help build a record of engineers’ actual and reported locations, highlighting any anomalies that need addressing.

Combine breakdown service with planned maintenance

Do you know which customers have routine service checks falling due? Is an engineer already scheduled to attend the customer or working with another customer nearby?

Being proactive in scheduling routine maintenance jobs will free your team to handle unexpected events.

Your systems should give you the flexibility to generate service jobs when you want to and to prompt operators with information about these jobs at the appropriate time.

Hit the ground running and increase first-time fix rates

You should have the systems in place to quickly identify who has the skills and availability to take a call. Provide them with everything they need to know to get in quickly, do the job, close down and exit, including call history and technical information. Enable them to do this via their mobile device, rather than having to carry around boxes of manuals.

Needless to say, your engineers require ready access to spares and parts. Can you track your inventory so that parts can be sourced quickly – from another engineer in the vicinity, the depot or a supplier? Give your engineers the power to search for and order spares via their mobile device.

This can also assist in reducing the costs of carrying inventory on the van ‘just in case’, which ties up your capital unnecessarily.

Plan non-billable activities

Time has to be allowed, planned and incorporated into the overall scheduling process for non-job related activities such as holidays and training. You need to be able to see at a glance any potential clashes: will approving a particular holiday request make it impossible to deliver certain jobs on time? Or can delivery be achieved only by the over-utilisation of the engineer prior to or immediately after their holiday?

And what contingency plans do you have for unplanned absence or adverse weather that may prevent engineers coming into work?

Review demand against resources

Integrated planning can help manage the tricky juggling act of satisfying the customer by responding within a reasonable timeframe and keeping engineers’ and back-office staff’s workloads within acceptable limits.

Your scheduling systems should prove invaluable in managing the complexity of resourcing across all jobs and provide a holistic view over the resourcing commitments across the business, so you can see at a glance the forecasted demand on your staff and their availability to take on new work.

By being able to visualise the impact of resourcing staff into new jobs and contracts, you can assign priorities and create realistic schedules. If necessary, reschedule or reassign existing work to another engineer with the skills to complete the job. Your system should hold details of engineers’ skills and certifications.

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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In this the second instalment of our on going series looking at some of the key insight delivered in Advanced Field Service’s Management Handbook 2016 we take a look at one of the most important areas of any field service operation… scheduling.  

You are also able to download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

Scheduling your field engineers is undoubtedly one of a service managers core key performance indicators (KPIs), central to business profitability, and a key target on which you and your staff are measured.

Get it right and you increase the chances of business success. Get it wrong and the consequences can be disastrous, with resources overstretched or your engineers and technicians ‘sitting on the bench’ waiting for the call. There are multiple factors to consider when getting the right scheduling solution for your organisation, such as...

What type of call are you doing?

Is your engineer being sent out as an urgent response to fix a breakdown in an emergency or are they preforming routine planned maintenance? And what type of service do your engineers deliver when they are on site? Is it your strategy to just fix the immediate problem before moving swiftly onto the next customer, trying to get as many jobs in per day as possible?

Or does your company take the viewpoint that a more sensible approach is to have your engineers go above and beyond when on site, so your engineer will take their time to make sure all potential problems are addressed in order to reduce the chances of another call-out in the near future? Finally what about your business model? Do you work on a pay per call basis or does the customer have a warranty, a service contract or a rental agreement?

What is your routing allocation model?

How can you ensure engineer days are utilised with maximum efficiency? Do you split your engineers into specific geographic regions? What about routing and tracking tools to help your engineers get from one job to the next? And what type of scheduling tools are you using – dynamic, assisted, none at all? Is this right for your business or should you be exploring scheduling options in greater detail?

Can you categorise the calls you do to plan the day effectively?

How do you optimise the number of calls per day your team is able to handle effectively? Also how do you balance the workload amongst your engineers? What considerations do you put in place to ensure you are getting this balance right? How should you be dividing your teams into large site service jobs? Is it better to concentrate on multi-location quick fixes or is a mix and match approach a better fit with your company and your team?

What about where in the week you try to place your planned maintenance work? Is it better to show a bias towards the latter half of the week to free up capacity for a start of week breakdown rush or is it more sensible to have an even spread across the week so you don’t face the possibility of preventative maintenance being continuously pushed back to accommodate emergency calls?

What is your skills/parts allocation model?

Of course it’s not just a case of getting an engineer to the job, we need to be getting the right engineer to the job. How easy is it for your team to dispatch jobs based on the engineers skill-set and knowledge base? Of course this is a two way street – do you know what skills each job requires and do you know what engineers have what skills?

How easy is it to access that information? Do you have systems in place to manage this or does your call centre team have to know all about your products and your engineers’ individual capabilities? What about building your engineers skill sets up - can you train all your engineers to do everything, and then keep them up to date? Is it plausible to do so? Or would it be more sensible to have area experts, specialists in certain maintenance and repairs? Is there a risk of over-utilising sought after individuals if you take this approach?

Do you understand the site access profile?

Finally what about the access your field service engineers will have to your customer’s site? Are the customers’ premises  open on a 24/7 basis, 9 to 5 or appointment only? Again are you relying on staff knowledge to ensure you don’t dispatch a field service engineer out to the job when he can’t get access or do you have automated systems in place to help avoid this?

All of these questions are key to helping you build up an understanding both of how your business is currently approaching scheduling and what changes you can make to get things running ever smoother…

Download the full 40 page ebook The Service Management Handbook 2016 no by clicking this link and completing the brief form.

 

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