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It’s no secret that data collection is important for generating valuable insight that helps plant managers improve efficiency in industrial systems. However the importance of understanding the context of the data is less well known. George Walker from Novotek explains more.

Tunnel vision is a problem across a variety of fields, from sports to industry. It is easy to get fixated on a single goal and to forget to take a step back for a wider view of a situation. Yet, taking this step back can provide invaluable insight and understanding of the reality of a situation. 

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario. Imagine that a maintenance manager has a machine that is bending wires. These wires have to bend to a very accurate angle to properly work. However, the machine isn’t bending them properly at certain times of the day, causing the business to produce faulty goods that have to be discarded. 

To fix this issue, the maintenance manager brings up the data collected by the device’s onboard software. The manager then analyses the data with a digital twinning platform. Looking at the analysis, it becomes apparent that the machine is vibrating anomalously at certain hours of the day. The manager dismantles the machine, reassembles it and even runs it in an isolated scenario, but is still unable to find the source of the problem.

 

"It is easy to get fixated on a single goal and to forget to take a step back for a wider view of a situation..."

 

In this instance, if the manager had taken a moment to take a step back and looked for context, they may have realised that the anomalous vibrations coincided with the activation period of a nearby piece of heavy machinery. There is nothing wrong with the machine in question, but its surrounding context reveals the cause of the error.

This is why context in data collection is vital.With an array of smart sensors and devices, paired with a digital twinning system like GE Digital’s Predix platform, across the whole production line, the manager could have clearly seen the correlation by viewing the data in context. Another method of achieving contextual understanding would have been by comparing the machine with other similar ones in different plants. 

This shows why digital twinning is such a powerful tool. Being able to recreate an entire plant in a digital model breaks silo mentality. This allows managers to have holistic insight, which reveals issues that were previously not apparent. Whatever the issue, it is evident that context in data collection matters. Being able to analyse systems is now a reality and should be used to the full extent of its potential.

With potential to reduce waste and unnecessary expenditure, digital twins will allow stronger operations. With context being easily achievable in the modern industrial arena, it no longer needs to be a trade secret among industrial businesses. And by sharing this knowledge, more businesses can make their smart networks smarter, their operations more efficient and their production processes more productive. 

George Walker is Managing Director of Novotek UK and Ireland.

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Blockchain and its potential has been mooted in field service circles for years. Is it time we stop thinking big and instead build smaller use-cases before we lose sight of what’s actually important, the end-user? Mark Glover, Field Service News’ Deputy Editor finds out more.

In 2008, a person (or a group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualised the first blockchain. A year later, this digitised digital ledger was a critical accessory to the group’s (or his) headline act, the now ubiquitous cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

The impact of this decentralised digital currency on financial markets and a curious, confused society has been fascinating to follow. That the persona of the inventor or the inventors remains unknown adds to the plot.

Yet, without blockchain, the currency wouldn’t function. This smart ledger, driven by a peer-to-peer network has the potential to stamp itself on industry and in particular field service. But can the sector adopt the technology in a way that will ultimately benefit the end-user?

Firstly though, and apologies to all those who have a handle on the technology, what is blockchain? Scouring the internet for a simple definition is tricky, eventually, the excellent forward-thinking mission.com offered this: “Blockchain is the technology that underpins digital currency (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and the like). The tech allows digital information to be distributed, but not copied. That means that each individual piece of data can only have one owner.”

 

"The tech allows digital information to be distributed, but not copied. That means that each individual piece of data can only have one owner..."

 

Straightforward enough. But let’s expand it to industry. How can it fit into the aerospace sector and specifically a plane engine? Parties involved include the airline, the engine manufacturer and the service company all of whom are squirting data into that asset’s blockchain.

The jet engine is a high-end valuable piece of equipment, the blockchain systems enable a single, irrefutable history of that asset. The linking of parties (blocks) removes the requirement for inter-party consultation before extracting required information meaning critical decisions can be made quicker and more effectively. It’s also secure and visible to everyone and accurate and trust, therefore, is enhanced around the chain. The benefits are tangible. So why aren’t all companies rushing to implement it?

“Like all emerging technologies there are only going to be one or two applications that are going to come up for this kind of thing in the very early days,” says Stephen Jeffs-Watts, Senior Advisor – Service Management at IFS. Stephen is an expert in blockchain, a keen enthusiast of its benefits but warns that fields service shouldn’t get too carried away just yet, particularly as sectors are only starting to dip their toes in the murky blockchain water.

 

"We have to try and bear in mind that it [blockchain] is also directly proportionate to the type of kit that’s been installed...“

 

A lot of the use cases that are coming up at the moment,” he tells me, “are in very high-value assets and very highly regulated supply chains; in aerospace, defence, nuclear and very-high-end medical applications,” he pauses. “There aren’t too many Phillips Medicals out there.”

In field service, blockchain technology can potentially trace parts, verify assets and look-up maintenance and operations history, but according to Stephen, it needs to bed-in with modern hardware before its benefits can be felt. “We have to try and bear in mind that it [blockchain] is also directly proportionate to the type of kit that’s been installed,” he warns, “Are you really going to use blockchain to authenticate the asset history or the maintenance and servicing history for a ten-year-old piece of equipment?” Another pause, “You’re not.”

Let’s go back to the jet engine blockchain analogy; the engine itself is a high-end piece of equipment.

The airlines and engine manufacturer, themselves are high-end companies:  BA, KLM, Lufthansa, Rolls Royce, GE, Northrup Grumann, for example. All are big companies keen to monetise blockchain, the only real way to do this is through data-ownership but in a high-asset blockchain, this isn’t always straightforward.

Who owns the data from a jet-engine? Is it the airlines?

The thrust from their plane goes through that engine and what about linking that to the pilot who’s flying that aircraft and jet engine through the air? That’s the airline’s data too. They also have a hand in the plane’s load: the number of passengers and baggage, fuel etc. That’s also data from the airline.

The engine itself? Rolls Royce might run it on a power-by-the-hour contract, so it’s their engine, so do they own the blockchain data? Like that other revolution IoT, blockchain becomes an issue of data ownership. What can be done to grease the chains to make the process run smoother?

“You’re going to have to get industries and supply chains to actually come together and solve the underlying data ownership issue,” Steve offers. “There is going to have to be some kind of consensus; an informal consensus through co-operation; the introduction of some kind of industry standard or ultimately an enforced consensus through legislative means,

Be it an Industry standard or a regulatory framework, large-scale blockchain implementation ultimately needs sectors to work together, to come together in agreement and as Steve explains, it also becomes an issue of trust. “Let’s say there are ten people involved in the supply chain: the operator, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), there may be a service operator; they’re all contributing data to that chain.

“But does the end operator actually have enough trust in the OEM to question if they are going to use their data and benchmark it against its competitors”, he ponders.

Issues around data-ownership, trust and unfit equipment unable to handle what is essentially a large-scale, shared google document are indicators that large-scale field-service blockchain implementation isn’t as close as we might think. Perhaps we are setting our sights too high? Maybe the use-cases should be carried out on a much smaller scale?

After all, cryptocurrency, the original thread of blockchain was designed for electronic financial transactions, not necessarily jet engines. Stephen agrees, referencing a well-known tracking device, he suggests we should keep things simple. “We could use blockchain like a glorified RFID tag that authenticates, verifies and gives you a reference point,” he says. “I can look at the blockchain and I can see who made it, when it was made, how it was transported.

“Where they may be just a couple of parameters about its last usage, you can look at that by a component-by-component type level, specifically in those cases where that kind of information is critical, or the authenticity is critical.

 

"There’s got to be a realistic level of ambition and some specific use-cases that prove the technology and prove the value of the technology before there comes any mainstream adoption..“

 

There’s got to be a realistic level of ambition and some specific use-cases that prove the technology and prove the value of the technology before there comes any mainstream adoption,” Stephen urges.

My conversation with Steve has been fascinating and his contribution to this article I’m sincerely grateful for. The insight he offered - most of which I’m unable to fit into this wordcount – was invaluable, yet despite all its potential of blockchain Stephen left me with a thought that goes beyond the blockchain hype: “So what?”

So what if an asset is pumping with blockchain data? All the customer wants is the device to start working again so they can get on with their business.

“What value does that bring to me as a customer,” argues Steve. “unless I’m in a highly regulated environment. When do you start loading up past-maintenance history? Is it good? Is it worthwhile? Probably not. So what’s the use-case that going to give killer value?

Steve continues from the end user's perspective: “Great, you’ve got blockchain. What do I get from you having blockchain? What do I get from being able to prove every last working second of this particular piece of kit? Why should I care?”

It’s an excellent point that perhaps gets lost in this fourth industrial revolution we find ourselves in. Among AI, and IoT and machine learning and blockchain should we not just focus on the customer needs and their requirements? Or will we continue to pursue the hype?

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Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief Editor, Kris Oldland's latest white paper, sponsored by eBECS, explores why field service organisations should be ensuring their field service technicians are collecting data from assets whilst on service calls even if they aren't ready to implement an IoT based approach to service delivery yet as by doing so they can reap some of the benefits and more importantly build the processes for a future world in which connectivity and data will be at the heart of customer service operations...

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by eBECS

In today’s field service sector companies are facing an increasingly complex set of challenges and the collation and analysis of data paradoxically seem to often be found at both ends of the spectrum.

Data can be at the heart of many problems for a field service organisation as they struggle to find useful insight amongst ever-increasing banks of data locked away in differing business silos. Yet the rewards for breaking down those silos and also being able to identify where the insight is within your data can lead to better service levels than have ever been possible previously.

The vast amount of data that we have access to today can potentially give us a much more intimate understanding of our customer base than ever before, giving us the ability to understand and even predict their needs, far more accurately than we have ever been able to manage previously.

The vast amount of data that we have access to today can potentially give us a much more intimate understanding of our customer base than ever beforeHowever, the flip side of this benefit is that companies are now finding themselves drowning in data - which becomes meaningless without insight, a challenge which can be magnified further if data is locked away behind walls within an organisation.

It can be a daunting challenge to not only establish processes that allow the collection of data but also to ensure that when collected, data can move seamlessly across an organisation to fulfil its maximum potential. Yet in today’s business climate where service has become a core differentiator, there has perhaps never been a more urgent need to ensure you are harnessing every tool available to you in the most efficient manner in order to stay just one step ahead of the competition - and data certainly holds many of the keys to service excellence when it’s collected, processed and analysed correctly.

An interesting symptom of operating in a world of technological advancements, is that when we talk about data collection within a field service context the topic immediately turns to IoT - but in doing so are we overlooking one of the most important resource in a service organisation already at our disposal - the field service engineers themselves?

The importance of data collection in an increasingly connected world

The question of whether the Internet of Things will play a part in field service has been and gone. The answer was a resounding ‘yes it will.’

Research from Field Service News showed that 86% of companies were actively either developing plans to implement IoT or had already done so. Indeed, in terms of IoT and field service, the question for the overwhelming majority of companies has moved from why to how.

However, the impact of IoT in field service is set to be so revolutionary that it cannot just be viewed as a new technology to be rolled out, it is a decision which must be grounded with a firm understanding of your business strategies, your future goals and a rock solid foundation of both processes and technologies that can allow an organisation to fully reap the benefits of an IoT based service strategy.

But the revolution isn’t really an IoT revolution, it is a data revolution.

Asset performance data and even component performance data can open the doors towards moving towards both a more preventative maintenance focused approach as well as empowering your service engineers to be able to find a first-time-fix on a more regular basis.

Asset performance data and even component performance data can open the doors towards moving towards both a more preventative maintenance focused approach as well as empowering your service engineersYet, for many service organisations, the sheer volume of data that a fleet of connected assets will produce will cause a series of problems and pain points in and of itself.

With companies facing unprecedented levels of data coming into their service operation not only from IoT connected assets but also various digital customer touch points whether that be via contact agents, self-service portals or even sentiment analysis of relevant social media, finding meaning and value within such a deep data lakes can be a daunting task.

In addition to this, there is the further question of retrofitting assets that a discussion on IoT necessarily brings with it.

For organisations with a large install base there are a number of considerations that must be given thought including:

• Which assets are worth retrofitting with IoT connected sensors?
• Is it worth waiting for some assets in the field to reach their natural obsolescence and then replace them with newer connected models?
• Should you prioritise retrofitting assets for those clients that are the most profitable or will having multiple levels of service contract be a hindrance to service delivery?
• What data is it important to track from retro-fitted assets? What is essential and what is merely nice to have?
• What processes will you need to develop or adjust in order to facilitate this data within the workflow of your service delivery teams?

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by eBECS

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As the role of the Chief Service Officer begins to gain more prominence the focus for driving service excellence at the executive level must be data driven writes Manuel Grenacher, CEO of coresystems...

Delivering service that meets the satisfaction of ever-demanding customers is helping usher in a new C-Level role at service and manufacturing companies.

Meet the Chief Service Officer (CSO).

It’s a role that isn’t widespread yet, but one that has begun to make inroads into leading service companies as more organizations eye revenue opportunities beyond equipment sales.

As product margins slip, CSOs are tasked with orchestrating and executing the type of service that retains and creates loyal customers. Selling a piece of equipment -- even one with a multimillion- dollar price tag -- is a one-time win. Service, however, can create revenue streams that deliver profits each year until the equipment is replaced.

It’s a model that more companies are adopting.

According to McKinsey, by 2016, nearly half of manufacturing companies expect that service will account for a third of their total revenue. But as companies move from being a commodity supplier to offering an on-going service relationship, a clear strategy is necessary.

Target Areas for CSOs 

Successful service relationships require a number of teams working together within an organization.

Aberdeen Research has found that 8 out of ten Best-in-Class organizations (leading field service companies) have a VP-level or higher executive leading service.

CSOs must prioritize getting accurate insights to the right service people at the right time, so that they can solve problems for customers.

Aberdeen found that Best-in-Class organizations have four main target areas (in order of priority):

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Improve customer retention and loyalty
• Improve service-related profitability
• Improve quality / relevance of service data
• Improve service information capabilities (i.e. mobility, knowledge sharing)

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But what can companies do to help CSOs reach these goals? Data and its analysis are key. Specifically, here are the three data-driven actions that Best-in-Class companies do to empower their CSOs:

Real-Time Insight Drives Real-Time Performance

CSOs must come to grips with managing and orchestrating the efficient operations of a number of different departments and technicians. Best-in-Class companies empower their CSOs with the right data to help drive real-time performance, the ultimate goal of any service organization.

What data, in particular, do CSOs need to move toward real-time service delivery?

Collecting data isn’t the problem it once was. In fact, some CSOs are experiencing the opposite; they are drowning in a deluge of data. The tool used to solve this is a business intelligence and analysis tool that enables consistent benchmarking of service performance.

 

Other tools are needed that let integrated data flow seamlessly from the field to the back office.

CSOs need real-time monitoring of asset operating conditions, performance, and usage. Finally, the tools CSOs use should enable real-time service visibility for senior management.

Give Your Field Team Tools That Deliver Valuable Service Experiences

The ultimate goal of service is to deliver value to the end customer. Service technicians need to ensure that a work order is completed, preferably during their first visit to the customer. But field visits represent an important opportunity for capturing data from equipment performance to visit details.

Our customer GE Power in Switzerland is using our Field Service Mobile APP to record granular data like temperature, upload or comment on pictures. This customer data can help inform the next visit or additional service needs.

Use Data to Continuously Improve Service

Customer expectations will only continue to grow. Since they are under pressure to perform too, customers are demanding real-time solutions to their service issues.

Customers won’t only compare your organization to competing firms, but also to their own customer experiences elsewhere. CSOs must study best practices across the entire service ecosystem and ensure that they are implementing these offerings.

Data and the analytics gathered on machines, equipment, and customers will help create the baseline. From there, CSOs should be able to evaluate and continue to improve service operations.

Some industries have been transformed already by incorporating data analytics into their standard processes.

To give an example, telecom companies can forecast traffic patterns, peak period bottlenecks, commercial versus domestic split, and thus perform real-time optimization of their voice and data networks. They can route around congestion to improve performance and the whole customer experience.

They take constant readings from their network data switches and build a big database of all their devices and customers to get a holistic view of the complete environment.

 

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Aberdeen’s Aly Pinder asks are we smarter than we were in the past, or do we just have better access to data?

When was the last time you asked someone for directions, or used a phone book, or waited for the day’s forecast on the morning news?

Well, that last one is probably something you still do out of habit, but the others are things which have left our consciousness as we can just “Google it” from our smart phones. The emergence of technology and the IoT has flooded the service leader with more data than ever before. Machines talk to machines, technicians collaborate with each other via mobile devices while in the field, and customers interact with the service team in real-time owning their experience.

But with all this access to information and data comes a few challenges. How much is too much data? How can we turn this data into actionable insights? Who needs to know what and when?

These are all questions that the Best-in-Class service leader is tackling right now. As seen in Aberdeen Group’s recent State of Service Management in 2016: Empower the Data-Driven CSO (March 2016) research, one of the top goals for service leadership was improving the quality and relevance of data for the service team. This is a top 3 goal, only trailing the need to improve customer retention and drive service profitability.

Happy customers, profits, and then data quality in that order shows how the impact of data is rising on the agenda of the senior service leader today. But how do we get to a place where data is useful?

Is the answer to our data problem more technology?

Top performers recognise that ensuring the service team has actionable data is a journey and not something that can be solved with one-off investments. It takes a strategy, leadership, and resolve. Connecting the field team to insights helped these organisations resolve issues faster, deliver more value to the customer conversation, and make the field team better at their jobs!

 

All these are great, and the Best-in-Class have some lessons for the rest of us:

Empower the service team with the data they need to make decisions, more isn’t always better.

Top performers ensure the field team has customized data views which provide only the pertinent information for technician for the specific task they are working on. Having the data necessary to solve complex issues at the time of service is integral to ensuring resolution can occur on a first visit, technicians are efficient, and the customer can be back up and running with minimal downtime.

Give the field team the mobile tools to have access to insights.

The field workforce is rapidly changing. We have been fearing the aging workforce for some time now, and it is finally here. But the Best-in-Class ensure that as technicians leave the business, their knowledge does not. They are able to capture best practices and expertise, and store these insights in an accessible location which can be tapped into via mobility in the field.

Leverage machine, customer, and technician data to identify the future of service excellence.

The IoT means different things to different people and industries. But the value isn’t just in the fact that we more devices are connected. The value of the IoT is in connecting the service chain to resolution, value creation, and collaboration. Smart machines and products open up a whole new world of possibilities as savvy organisations can take this data and better understand how to optimise assets performance, build better machines, deliver more targeted services to customers, and ensure technicians know the answer to the problem before they even get on site in front of the machine.

The proliferation of data in this era of the empowered customer can be a challenge for many organisations. Too much data leads to delayed action or inaction altogether. Top performing organisations have invested in technology and their internal processes to ensure they can turn all of the valuable data being captured every minute into actionable insights which drive value.

Top performers were able to take improved data capabilities and turn that into outperformance in key metrics such as customer retention, SLA compliance, and worker productivity.

Don’t be left behind looking at a phone book or reading a map. Tap into real-time data to make the decisions which will lead you into the future of service excellence.

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As we continue to bring you a selection of features from The Service Manager Handbook (2015 edition) published by Advanced Field Service we now turn our attention to one of the core tools for building future success, namely the implementation of Analytics and intelligence

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

 

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In today’s challenging business environment, there is little margin for error. Service managers need an even greater and fully in-depth understanding of their business to improve business planning, helping them make better-informed decisions, to ultimately keep ahead of the competition whilst attracting new customers and retaining their existing customers.

Instant access to management information

The benefits of replacing hand-crafted reports and spreadsheets with more interactive, integrated and intuitive tools are well documented.

As well as removing the unnecessary heavy wastage of man hours, and delaying what is often critical business decisions that can impact your opportunities to not only grow but also identify areas of weakness within your business that could potentially lead to loss of clients, easier access to your data improves control of your business with the following key insights:

• Intelligence to recognise emerging trends: Today’s business environment is faster paces nad more dynamic than ever before, whilst in the past reputations could be built on doing what you do and doing it well, today standing still can lead to dangerously dramatic decline in business, particularly from a service point. Since the economic crash in 2008 service has risen to become the key differentiator between businesses and with modern consumers (both B2B and B2C) well equipped to air any grievances in public via social media the pitfalls of failing service can be catastrophic for a business. As technology continues to push the boundaries of what is possible, it is imperative that service orientated companies embrace this to stay ahead of the competition and deliver service excellence at all times.
• The ability to identify and seize new opportunities or ward off threats: Of course embracing technology doesn’t just mean delivering better standards of service to customers. New emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things can help businesses move from a traditional break-fix reactive approach to a more efficient and cost effective preventative maintenance approach. Through remote monitoring optimum performances can delivered across the install base ultimately leading to less service calls in the long term.
• Power to understand key areas delivering profit (and loss): As the old adage goes you can only manage what you measure. Field service companies are perhaps uniquely positioned to be able to gather more information about their customers than any other industry as they have the benefit of ‘eyes and ears’ on site with your customers. The flow of this information from business unit to business unit allows for far greater insight of where new potential revenue streams may lie, as well as profit leakage may be occurring.
• Fast, informed decision-making based on accurate and live information: The rise in prevalence of dashboard analytics now make it possible for field service managers and their colleagues in other business areas such as procurement and sales to see trends based on the data collected easily and instantly, empowering them to make critical business decisions, and to get them right.
• Unprecedented insight into the most/least profitable areas of your business: In terms of data collection, processing and analysis we are truly living in a golden age. Businesses that harness the power of the data they have access to not only have superior understanding of their own businesses but also of their customers and most crucially of their customers pain points.

Your back-end service management solution should be able to do all the work of collating real-time information automatically across your jobs.

It should also make easy work of presenting it in the formats that are most useful to your management team, providing full visibility of contract profitability and equipping decision-makers with instant access to vital information on the business, including your profit forecasts.

Easy-to-understand analytics

As a matter of course, your data should be regularly analysed in a multitude of ways and in varying degrees of complexity, from viewing a daily high-level graphical KPI dashboard, down to examining detailed monthly reports.

Not surprisingly, analytical dashboards are fast becoming the service manager’s reporting tool of choice. They offer true anytime/anywhere reporting, via a browser or mobile device, in a way that makes it easy to instantly grasp the significance of the information.

If you have this dashboard facility in your service management solution, you’ll be able to drill down to the original data source to analyse all your core data including: customer status; financials; performance and productivity of engineers, with hours worked and number of visits; stock and supplier KPIs; calls by equipment, site and efficiency; costing of jobs and engineers; call response times.

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As we continue to bring you extracts from The Service Manager Handbook, published by Advanced Field Service here we look at three quick tips to help you manage your service P&L whilst keeping your field workers happy and motivated…

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

 

Mine your data to plan for the future

Today’s customers are flexing their buying muscles and exerting pressure on suppliers to fulfil ever more challenging SLAs. To stand a chance of meeting rising customer expectations, while maintaining profit levels, you need full visibility over your contracts and tighter control over your SLA management.

Setting realistic budgets and timescales

Having access to historical information on the actual cost of similar projects, contracts and large installations helps to ensure that future bid costs and resource requirements are accurately assessed and a realistic price proposed.

You want to win the contract but not at a cost that could break you!

There are many factors that will determine the price of the project to the client, but the cost and resources that are needed to deliver the contract are not always fully considered at the bid stage. Without formal systems in place, many service organisations find it difficult and time-consuming to compile this historical information.

 

As a result, bids are based on gut feel and best guess, running the risk of perpetuating profit-killing mistakes. With an accurate budget in place – covering all your materials, labour and subcontractor costs – managers will be able to track actuals against estimates and use this information for future planning.

Optimising parts management - Don’t tie up your cash 

If your organisation stores parts, you will be all too aware of the dangers of stockpiling when cash flow is so important. Rather than relying on best guess, automating the forecasting process to predict usage will avoid the pitfall of holding more parts than are required.

Your systems should give you the power to analyse your parts history, so you can recognise trends and fluctuations to ensure that levels fall within the desired optimum range and can anticipate demand at peak times. This will reduce the amount of cash held in unnecessary high numbers of parts, and reduce the overheads of managing your inventory, while ensuring that your engineers achieve maximum productivity by having the right parts at the right time.

Managing parts ‘on-the-move’

Your systems should also enable you to keep track of your van stock levels and usage, as well as automatically re-ordering and replenishing when nearing a minimum level.

A good service management solution can help to effectively manage your inventory of parts, enabling you to carry the right levels to meet customer demand, without restricting cash flow. Good planning will also help avoid overstocks by scheduling parts to arrive when you need them, and ensuring you are able to optimise fluctuations in demand and effectively manage

Monitoring and managing performance

KPIs are a vital tool for service organisations to effectively track, monitor and evaluate performance to achieve sustainable growth. It is vital to identify which KPIs align to your business success. Standard service management metrics include: [unordered_list style="bullet"]

• First-time fix rates
• SLA adherence
• Engineer productivity
• Job costing
• Call rates
• Net profit margin
• Stock value
• Customer satisfaction/retention

Without proactively monitoring KPIs, service businesses are vulnerable to problems that can seriously undermine both performance and profitability. For example, failure to regularly monitor sales margins could mean that a costly recurring mistake is discovered only at year-end.

Sharing achievements

All too often, key performance information is only available to managers and directors, with staff review periods that are too infrequent to proactively affect the outcome of future jobs.

 

Also, this information may only be available through a central source, which can lead to a feeling of ‘them and us’. Relevant information should be available to all members of the team. Simple, clear and targeted information – not complicated reports – will help them to take ownership of their utilisation, performance and deliverables.

Using systems that can provide this vital information in real-time, such as mobile or web-based reporting, allows field engineers to see if they are on track to deliver within the schedule allocated. If not, the issue can be raised at the earliest opportunity, the causes assessed and appropriate action taken.

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

 

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