By Heman Kassan, Chief Operating Officer Technodyn International
Throughout Africa, businesses that have technicians in the field face unique challenges to their European and US-based peers. Geography, for one, resources are another, and the capitulations of faults are because of power disruptions and ageing technologies and systems.
Getting teams to the right place at the right time, with the right tools and people, takes careful and often real-time planning. Something that the whiteboard schedules of the past are no longer able to deliver. It’s also one of the many reasons organisations with a field service or mobile team should consider using the cloud for service management, planning, and scheduling optimisation.
Working with the cloud
Many companies have centralised their systems well, creating a single platform that pools together mission-critical information to deliver a consolidated map for fault reporting, maintenance requirements, and staffing needs. But what is lacking is getting the information into the hands of field technicians who spend most of their time on the road in real time.
For example, if an Eskom technician has been assigned to replace a few components in a substation in Joburg North as part of maintenance, but there is a critical infrastructure failure that has just been reported in the same area. The technician can be alerted to the fact through cloud-based field service management software such as IFS on their cloud-linked mobile device, for example, a Zebra handheld. They can then be assigned to the critical fault, and once they log that the fault has been fixed, the system will immediately prioritise the initial job they had set out to do.
With real-time planning and resource allocation, which can only be done with a cloud-based environment, service providers across all sectors can immediately improve response times and heighten customer service.
Making smarter decisions
But it’s not just alerts and schedule changes that are the key to improved service operations and field productivity. Adding AI-driven predictive analytics embedded in the software an organisation uses will also help optimise field service resource scheduling and maximise business efficiencies.
Using AI, all data collected becomes critical to resource allocation and system performance. Again, if our Eskom technician’s initial task were to replace components that were on the brink of causing a major fault themselves, the AI wouldn’t reassign them to the new fault. Instead, it would be able to determine the severity of each callout and then calculate where the field resource is best needed, alert senior project managers and field engineers, who can then make the call based on all the information are hand.
This data is presented back at the “home base” to senior supervisors in a dashboard or report that gives them visibility over operations, enabling them to make informed decisions in real-time. In parallel, field technicians will be sent communications on where they need to be via a mobile app that will empower them to receive schedule changes quickly and rapidly report on the status of jobs.
Where the cloud meets mobility
While many organisations know the technology to assist their field service operations exists, many are still unwilling to transform from their legacy environments they deem to have “served them well”. So let’s look at another benefit, this time around the use of mobile technology to deliver a competitive edge in field service.
With mobile technology connected to your field service cloud, a business can always gain access to all relevant data. In the case of a sales environment, this is especially useful when checking the availability of spare parts on a smartphone or tablet and creating invoices and quotations on-site at the customer. It’s all about creating that moment of service which wows your customer and increases the efficiency of the service.
A great example is IFS client Konica Minolta, which currently has around two million customers in 150 countries. The company is a leading provider of digital workplace services, commercial and industrial printing, and optical systems for industrial use, which means the company has a large field service operation with 3,250 employees. With the IFS’s Field Service Management software, Konica Minolta is transitioning to a predictive maintenance model that will allow them to plan the deployment of field service staff more efficiently across ten national operating companies (NOCs) across Europe. IFS Cloud will also ensure maximum equipment uptime, reduce engineer callouts, and improve customer experience.
Transforming field worker productivity
In short, if you empower field workers to manage their day, from start to finish, on mobile devices to efficiently deliver great service as part of a connected team – you create the moment of service. The only real way to do this in today’s interconnected world is by using the cloud.
