Mobile Software and Score Cards for Field Services

Business intelligence and dashboard applications for mobile workers is an interesting concept. It is not hard to develop mobile software applications that can show all field service technicians how many service calls and product/service sales all of the other service technicians have completed for the week. Management can tie good performance with variable compensation for those with the best scores. Let peer pressure and visibility to job performance help your service technicians improve their own performance.

The above score carding data is available in most work order management applications, however, it is rarely shown to the field service technicians. If the mobile workforce does not see it, then it can not be used for performance improvement. If the manager let's the field services teams see their performance and see how it rates against all others, they will often be motivated to improve their personal performance.

The concept here is to provide mobile software with performance score cards that field service technicians see daily. This data can be synchronized to the mobile devices from the ERP or company accounting software. Create a performance and profitability dashboard for mobile handheld computers that encourages the field services team to compete with each other, and published industry benchmarks. Encourage good performance, with bonuses and other rewards, that deliver long term profitability. Let your teams become part of the solution, and correct their own issues through visibility and peer pressure.

Contact us if you are interested in mobile field service score carding applications or other mobile software solutions.

Small Mobile Service Businesses Using Rugged Handheld Computers and Smart Phones

Over the past few years I have spoken to many small service companies about mobilizing their business processes including field services, work orders, asset tracking, inspections, etc. These service companies were most often looking for a way to reduce administration, accounting and dispatch costs and to make their operations simpler.

Wirelessly dispatching service tickets to service technicians with Smart phones or rugged handheld computers is one obvious and relatively simple way to make things more efficient. You remove the need for a person to call the service technician and read the service ticket information while the service technician takes notes.

If you have 20 service technicians in the field, the average service company would have a full time dispatcher just calling service technicians all day. Each service technician could easily spend 30 minutes a day just on the phone with the dispatcher. That is easily 600 wasted minutes per day. That equates to a lot of unnecessary expenses and lost opportunity costs (lost opportunity to complete more work orders). This should be an electronic work order that is wirelessly dispatched and just vibrates your Smart phone.

Many small companies are run by an owner/operator. The mobile owner/manager is able to take customer calls while on the road and enter work orders and job assignments on his handheld computer, dispatch the job to his team and keep working in the field. All the work is electronically documented on handhelds and synchronized back to his office accounting and work order software without human intervention. Read this article for related information.

These above capabilities are very compelling to a small business. You have full business visibility on the Smart phone or rugged handheld. You don't have the high admin cost for the office. You can run very small operations very efficiently and with built in quality assurance.

If you are here in Australia and would like to discuss your needs for mobile applications please contact us.

Geotagging, Equipment and Asset Management with Mobile Handhelds

Are you familiar with the term Geotagging as it relates to Asset Management? If not here is today's definition from wikipedia. This is an important concept for professionals involved in Asset Management or in the equipment services and maintenance business. Let me explain.

Many field services companies involved in the repair and maintenance of equipment offer their customers annual service contracts. In these contracts, the service company will agree to a limited set of inspections, services and maintenance tasks on certain equipment for a given time period. The field services companies limit their exposure to loss by limiting the services included in the annual services agreement. It is very important that the services company run a very efficient operation in order to generate a profit on these contracts. This related article discusses some of the mobile software applications and IT systems strategies that can be implemented.

Geotagging, in the context of Asset Management and equipment maintenance, means you can identify the exact location of the equipment you have under contract. How? Someone geotagged all of the equipment and entered it into a database. This can easily be done with a GPS enabled handheld computer with a mobile data collection software application. A person walks around and geotags all of the equipment and wirelessly synchronizes this data with their asset tracking and maintenance system. Now the exact location of the equipment can be shared across applications.

Here is one use case - you may have agreed to an annual contract to service all of the air conditioning units in a specific business complex. Within this complex are a variety of air conditioning brands and models. The service company may also have different service technicians certified to repair and service the different brands. As a result, it is very important for the service technician to service as many of his certified units as possible when he is at that location to save on travel time and fuel costs.

Geotagging helps the service technician know the location of all units that need serviced. It could be the latitude and longitude, street address, campus, building number, floor, room and location in the room.

The service company, for efficiency sake, would want to schedule a service technician to inspect and maintain all of the units at the same location at the same time. At least the ones he is certified to service. Therefore, the service company could schedule a day and time, and prepare a map of the equipment locations, so the service technician could complete his tasks as fast as possible.

Geotagging is not just for static objects. Asset tracking, which often means placing GPS tracking units that wirelessly report their locations on various movable equipment is also very relevant. We will discuss this component in a separate article later this week.

A good scenario would be for the service technician to wirelessly receive a dispatched work order on his rugged handheld computer. The work order would list all of the required services and tasks for each piece of equipment and their asset tags and geotags. The tasks on the work order would be in the exact order that the equipment could be found. The result is a fast and efficient service call that is very efficient and requires only one visit to service all the units.

The completed work order is wirelessly synchronized back to the service company's ERP or CMMS (computer managed maintenance system).

Vehicles and fleets of vehicles are also very important assets that need to be tracked and managed. Since these are moving assets solutions specifically for real-time fleet tracking are available as described here.

If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail please contact me.

40 Reasons to Convert from Paper Processes to Mobile Applications on Smart Phones and Handheld Computers

This article describes the value that mobile software applications on handheld computers, Smart Phones and PDAs can provide businesses:

1. Eliminate time spent in the re-typing data collected in the field.
2. Reduce time spent on the phone dispatching service tickets, rather dispatch direct from your office computer to the mobile handheld computer in the field.
3. Send driving directions in the mobile work order to save driving time and fuel costs.
4. Save driving time by wirelessly synchronizing work orders with the office.
5. Reduce fuel costs by minimizing the need to drive back and forth to the office to deliver paper work.
6. Provide better customer service by accessing their account information via wireless connectivity on your handheld computer.
7. Improve the efficiency of field data collection by using barcode scanners or RFID readers for rapid asset tracking.
8. Improve the quality of work by providing real-time management visibility to work being done in the field.
9. Create and schedule service tickets direct from the field. Reduces the need for an administrative intermediary.
10. Immediate invoicing for faster collections and better cash management by synchronizing with the office accounting system or by using a mobile printer and credit card swipe machine on the handheld computer.
11. Proof of work – GPS audit trail of work with date and time stamp documents location and time of work. Reduces invoicing disputes.
12. Reduce introductions of human errors with automated business processes and systems integration. Move electronic data from the field to your database applications without human intervention.
13. Ensure complete data is sent from the field – incomplete data wastes time tracking down later.
14. Avoid handwriting and translation errors by pre-populating electronic form information.
15. Validate answers on mobile handheld PDA forms – to ensure data accuracy.
16. Take digital images to document work and avoid invoicing disputes.
17. Push data to the handheld and avoid time communicating information on the phone and writing on note pads.
18. GPS tracking for reduced travel time and lower fuel consumption.
19. Compute and analyze data on the handheld in the field – programmed analytics can help field users make quicker and better decisions.
20. Automated business processes - your mobile application can be configured to perform all kinds of automated business functions, queries, computations, analytics and many more time consuming features automatically based on data input or buttons pushed.
21. Enforce business processes for efficiency and best practices - mobile software solutions can be configured to ensure the field user follows the appropriate business processes.
22. Avoid lost data —capture data immediately and sync to headquarters.
23. Avoid undocumented inventory usage and unbilled time due to forgetfulness. Enforce real time data entry at point of work.
24. Require clock in and clock out at jobsites to document the accuracy of work/time estimates.
25. Train new service technicians and inspectors with audio memos or video clips.
26. Capture digital signature for proof-of-delivery and proof of work on handheld computers.
27. Query for available mobile inventory in nearby work vans to save travel time, inventory and fuel cost.
28. Use product and services information on handheld computers to up-sell.
29. Query latest shipping status and/or inventory levels via handheld computer while onsite with customer.
30. Automatically capture date and time stamps on your mobile handheld computer to document work and inspections times to limit liability and invoice disputes.
31. Use mobile technologies as a competitive advantage and show instant visibility to work, shipping status, schedules, inventory and account status.
32. Demonstrate to potential customers the competitive advantages of including GPS, time and date stamps, digital images, audio memos and more to document work and synchronize with the office using your handheld computer.
33. Download product warranty information to the handheld computer for review and presentation at the point of work.
34. Using rugged handhelds are often easier to carry around at job sites and are more durable than using laptops—lower ownership costs.
35. Mobile handheld computers with barcode scanners capture data quicker than typing on a laptop.
36. Combine your phone, GPS device, laptop, digital camera, paper forms and barcode scanner all on one mobile handheld device to save money, weight and support costs.
37. Combine job estimates, inspections, work orders, mobile inventory, time sheets all on one mobile application and one synchronization platform to mobilize and automate the entire business.
38. Scale your business by lowering administrative costs and the administrative work required to run the business.
39. Improve profits by analyzing real-time data collection on handhelds to understand the amount of time each task takes—so better scheduling and estimates can be implemented.
40. Push data to the handheld and avoid time communicating information on the phone.

How do you select the right handheld computer or Smart Phone?  This article lists 54 questions that will help you identify the right kind.

If you would like to discuss any of these topics in more detail, or to discuss your mobile project or application requirements please contact us.

SAP and Mobile Software Application Workflows in the Field

The way business processes are designed, implemented and standardized within a company can often mean the difference between success and failure. If often takes years of trial and error, and sometimes flashes of brilliance to come up with just the right business process that will mean success and competitive advantages.

Once the perfect business process is proven it needs to be implemented and automated. Why automated? Because humans are forgetful and have even been known to be from time to time lazy. They want to cut corners and avoid that which is tiresome. Automation enforces and manages the perfect business process.

For years software vendors and ERP developers like SAP have developed applications that help design workflows and workflow engines to run them. These provide the technology infrastructure within the enterprise to automate these business processes and to ensure they are followed, however, once an employee exits the building and drives away in a company van to perform a task remotely, the automated business process breaks down. Suddenly, the business processes that you have spent years perfecting are useless. The employee has broken the "connection" and walked out the door to freedom.

Even today, most mobile field service workers leave the building with a clipboard and a stack of paper service tickets or work orders. How they perform their work, in what order and the processes they utilize in the field are now unsupervised and up for interpretation. The field service technicians often don't much care for the business processes designed by the teams of MBAs in suits at the office. They have their own preferences and opinions about how things should be done, and in remote jobsites who is going to argue?

Many large companies have up to 40% of their employees working remotely and/or in the field on jobsites. How can the SAP or other ERP Business Process Expert design and implement business processes that can be utilized and enforced in mobile and remote locations? This is a challenge worth resolving.

Think about it, a company pays tens of millions of dollars implementing SAP internally and designing business processes and workflows to operate their enterprise. Yet for many services based businesses the money is earned outside the office at remote locations. The location where the customer interaction takes place and where the money is made is often devoid of best in class business process automation.

Mobile applications that need to synchronize with ERPs, should implement mobile workflow support. This requires a client server architecture whereby the mobile client software understands that a workflow or event manager is associated with a particular process and the server also understands that it is both producing and consuming data with the mobile device that is part of an event or workflow. Let me provide a scenario.

A service technician has a ruggded PDA or other mobile device on his belt. He receives an alert that he needs to be dispatched to a jobsite. This initiates a business process with a workflow associated with it. A series of tasks that make up the dispatch and completion of a service ticket are now initiated. The tasks may include:

1. Dispatch receives a service call
2. This initiates a series of tasks including estimating the availability and analyzing the location of all service technicians in the area.
3. Once the nearest available service technician is identified a service dispatch can be sent
4. Service technician confirms availability and accepts the job
5. Least cost and fastest routing information is sent
6. Service technician arrives at the jobsite and pushes a button on his mobile device annoucing his arrival.
7. Arrival message synchronizes with the server workflow or event manager notifying dispatch of his location on site.
8. The workflow may include an inspection, detailed findings, proposed solution, repair and collection of the fee
9. Any parts needed will be automatically deducted from the service vehicle's inventory
10. The workflow can also include sales and marketing activities such as promoting an Annual Service plan or equipment upgrade to the customer
11. The repair is complete, the customer's digital signature is captured and dispatch is notified
12. The service technician is available for another job

In this scenario, the mobile client application using a workflow engine that interacts with the server side application steps the service technician through the various tasks included in the business process. These steps can be directions in the form of alerts, messages, next steps, data fields that require input, and feedback from the dispatch office. Each step of the workflow required input from the service technician to confirm that the step had been completed and this information was in turn synchronized with the server side workflow engine. This enables the best practices supported by the company to be practiced and supervised in the field.

SAP has a solution called Event Manager. It is designed to manage activities happening across a geographically dispersed supply chain. It requires data input via B2B and EDI data communications. Similarly, mobile applications can feed data into a centralized workflow or event management solution that helps support and ensure best practices across remote jobsites.

A workflow engine and a mobile client version of a mobile workflow engine is required by companies that want to standardize business processes in the field where interactions with customers take place and where revenue is earned.

To discuss this subject in more detail or other mobile applications we have implemented in Australia please visit our website or contact us.

Mobile Applications - Hosted or Not?

Many companies have asked whether a hosted or non-hosted enterprise mobile software application would be best for them. The answer may be best determined by the following questions:

1. Is the enterprise software application that you want to connect to your mobile handhelds, an off-the-shelf application like SAP, SAGE, MS Dynamics or Quickbooks?
2. Is the mobile software application simply a mobile front end (GUI) to the back-office application? Does it do basically the same thing you would do on the office application, but in a mobile environment?

If the answer is NO to any of the above, then you are into a custom development environment that is difficult to support in a hosted model. Companies that host applications need volume and reusability. Custom projects may be uploaded to a hosted data center, but there is no business case for the software vendor/developer to pursue this as a business model. However, if the mobile software application is custom, but the database application that it synchronizes with is sold as an off-the-shelf application, then there may be a business case.

Here is a real life scenario. SAP ERP does not handle work orders or service tickets well if they are not associated with a pre-approved purchase order. This is a problem in the oil fields as contractors and service technicians are often called to perform unanticipated work to fix or repair items. Since SAP does not like to receive unexpected invoices, Field Service software vendors have responded to this need by developing applications that convert these unexpected invoices into acceptable SAP formats that are integrated with SAP using standard integrations. These same vendors have created mobile work order applications that synchronize with their work order management systems. They have a standardized model that can be sold in a hosted environment.

Since the work order management application was an off-the-shelf software package, with a standardized integration to SAP, it could be offered in a hosted environment with a good business model.

If the work order management system was custom, and the back-office application or ERP was custom, then the mobile software application would need to be custom and there is no efficiencies in this scenario for a hosted solution.

If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail please email.

The ROI for Mobile Software Applications

The ROI (return on investment), in this context, is the term used to describe the value of a mobile software solution relative to the expense of designing, developing and deploying it. If a mobile solution cost $145,000, how do you justify the investment? Management needs to see that their investment will provide a quick and positive return. The following list contains some of the most common justifications for mobilizing business processes:

1. Eliminate time spent in the office re-typing data collected in the field: Enable field service technicians to synchronize information directly with the office database.
2. Eliminate time spent on the phone dispatching service tickets or work orders. Both the time of the dispatcher and the time of the service technician: Dispatch electronic service tickets direct from your work order management system in the office with the mobile device of your service technician.
3. Save time finding each work location: Send driving directions, or links, in the electronic work order that work with the GPS and mapping software in the mobile device.
4. Avoid the high fuel costs incurred delivering paperwork to the office and picking it up: Synchronize the data direct from the field to the central database application.
5. Avoid the time cost transporting paperwork from the field to the office: Synchronize the data collected from the field with the push of a button.
6. Save time and provide better customer service by providing real-time access to enterprise parts, orders, and inventory data while in the field: Enable mobile access to customer history, product documentation, warranty information, inventory information, time sheets, work schedules and much more.
7. Save time with field data collection by using barcode scanners and barcode labels, or RFID readers and RFID tags on assets: A quick scan with a handheld computer can automatically display all stored information related to the asset for quick review, edits and additions.
8. Save time and reduce admin costs by creating and scheduling new service tickets direct from the field: Provide immediate invoicing for faster collections and better cash management: Allow field tech to print the invoice on a mobile printer at the job site.
9. Save time and postage costs: Print the invoice and leave it with the customer at the job site, rather than wait and bill later from the office.
10. Document proof of work completed to reduce invoice disputes: Leave a GPS audit trail of where work was performed and include a time and date stamp. Digital photo evidence of before and after work is also useful.
11. Reduce the introduction of errors: Paper based systems are inherently slow and error prone due to human interaction, copying and re-typing. The more human hands that touch a paper form and add or edit data, the more chances that errors can be introduced to the data which will cause invoice disputes, inaccurate records and confusion.
12. Reduce administrative costs by ensuring complete data is sent from the field, as incomplete or inaccurate field data can take hours of work to track down and correct: Send data from the field and ensure it is complete with data integrity features on the mobile handheld computers and rugged PDAs.
13. Reduce administrative costs by avoiding errors and misinterpretations due to poor or misread handwriting: Create electronic forms with pre-made options, check boxes and lists, and by using onscreen digital keyboards.
14. Reduce administrative costs by ensuring the accuracy of data: Validate answers in the mobile software application on the handheld PDA.
15. Reduce time on the phone and dangerous note taking while driving: Push documents directly from the office to the handheld.
16. Save time and fuel by providing electronic dispatch and least cost routing: Use vehicle and/or handheld GPS tracking to view your workforce locations. Handheld computers with GPS functionality can integrate with GIS and display the location of the field worker to help managers better organize service responses.
17. Save time by developing computation and analysis features on the rugged handheld in the field: Programmed analytics can help field users make quicker and more accurate decisions and job estimates.
18. Save time in the field by automating business processes in the mobile software: Mobile application can be configured to perform all kinds of automated business functions, queries, computations and analytics.
19. Ensure quality work habits: Automate “best practices” into your mobile software application and provide visibility to managers.
20. Automate quality and best practices - Activate the appropriate business process based upon the data entered: A specific answer can trigger the required business process.
21. Reduce inventory loss - Avoid undocumented inventory usage and unbilled time: Enforce real time data entry before clock out or work order completion.
22. Improve job estimates: Require clock in and clock out on work to document and analyze the accuracy of work estimates.
23. Improve technician training: Train new service technicians and inspectors with audio memos or video clips in the handheld computer application.
24. Reduce disputes by documenting deliveries and work with digital signatures, date and time stamps and barcode scanners on the handheld computer.
25. Save travel time and fuel cost: Query available inventory in nearby company vehicles.
26. Increase profit per customer: Use information on handheld computers to up-sell more products and services while onsite with the customer.
27. Provider quicker and more accurate estimates: Query latest shipping status, schedules or inventory levels via handheld computers while onsite with customer.
28. Increase warranty revenues: Include updated customer information on the handheld computer so the service technician can sell warranty and maintenance plans, new products and upgrades.

These are just some of the common areas where enterprise mobile applications have been found to provide significant value.  If you would like to discuss this subject in more detail or discuss an upcoming mobile application project in Australia please contact us.