Field Service/Dispatch

1. Field Service/Dispatch By Pooyan Sameii

2. Introduction • FS/D software is evolving from solely back-office functionality to an enterprise system that tightly couples the back office with the front-office servicing systems. • FS/D applications must be integrated with the contact center and the call management system &, in the future, will be integrated with the sales organization. • FS/D systems are also referred to as "service delivery chain management" software, which is intended to assist organizations in increasing sales revenue, reducing labor and parts costs, improving productivity, reducing outages, and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

3. Requirements

4. Modules for call management • Dispatchers to have immediate access to each technicians skill level, location, and parts inventory, so the correct resources are assigned, enabling fast and accurate service, the first time. • Create new and track historical service calls. • Balance workloads throughout the day or week.

5. Workforce forecasting and scheduling • Companies with large numbers of field force professionals, or that take a large number of field service calls require optimization applications that continually monitor, schedule and select the appropriate routes for field forces

6. Contract Management & Warranties • Contract Management • Use and select right contract for delivered Service request . • flexibility to adapt to today's rapidly changing service environment. • Renew contracts by re-pricing and then reissuing them. • Warranties Keep track of warranty details and do not overlook potential revenue sources. • eReturns allows customers to initiate and monitor the returns process

7. Returns Management • Manage product and part returns regardless of type, including credit, cross-ship, replacement, and repairs. • Automatically check for returns of the same item to identify potential problems. • Track repair status. • Accurately credit customers based on the original sales invoice.

8. Wireless Device • Wireless Device to communicate with the field service employees. Pocket PC Personal digital assistant (PDA) Smart phone Mobile (connected and detached) Internet computing Data synchronization • Provides real-time, direct connectivity to field professionals

9. Defect tracking • (i.e., quality assurance) and reporting ,searching • facilitates teamwork between different users, teams, and even customers • On receiving an assigned defect, developers are expected to respond with a message to the user acknowledging and opening the defect

10. Service part planning and Management • have all information readily available in one central location. • Assign technicians to the right jobs with information on their current location skills availability and materials and equipment needed to complete each job

11. Inventory Management • Access to inventory and part information • It provides a continuous flow of goods and matches the quantity of goods kept in inventory as closely as possible with customer demand. • inventory management improve by applying a just-intime inventory system and electronic data interchange.

12. Four specific aspects of inventory management • when to reorder • how much to reorder • warehousing • stock turnover number of times during a stated period (usually one year) that average inventory on hand is sold. It shows the relationship between a firm’s sales and the inventory level it maintains.

13. Depot repair / overhaul • Prioritize and schedule internal repair operations. • Track parts and labor work in process • Repair costs can be rolled into items cost or expensed.

14. Requirements (Conti.) • Entitlements • Infrastructure maintenance

15. CRM Field Service Management MagicQuadrant 2003 • The complexity of scheduling and dispatching field technicians varies greatly from industry to industry. • Geographic • personnel number • Company Size and need

16. Examples of requirements • • Wireless device (Pocket PC, personal digital assistant,smart phone) support • • Mapping and workforce scheduling • • Access to inventory and parts info • • Inventory planning • • Entitlements lookup, contract management • • View of shipping and procurement procedures • • Ability to create a purchase order, bill of materials or invoice

17. FS/D rating • No such product currently supports all the required functions for a large business across multiple sectors • With the recent emergence of entry-level field service functionality in enterprise application packages from vendors such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel Systems, shows alternatives to the point solutions from the smaller vendors.

19. Siebel Systems • It has benefited from the increased buyer emphasis on vendor viability over superior domain knowledge of the service business. • Siebel has made smart use of partnerships to span gaps in the product line, such as wireless, mapping and parts planning, as well as training integrator partners in the use of its systems. • Siebel still has only a minor number of wireless users among its installed base. • Siebel will remain the leader in field service applications through 2005 (0.7 probability).

20. Astea International • focuses on capital equipment manufacturers, produces solid references to attest to its deep industry expertise and ability to integrate with ERP and legacy systems. • It is not yet strong in the wide-scale use of wireless or thin clients, but otherwise it is very capable in its core industry. • A key challenge for Astea is to prove that it can both market to new customers and convert users of its older products to the new Web architecture.

21. Oracle • currently lacks sufficient expertise at selling and deploying its system • It will require at least two years to complete the product gaps (flexible screen design, mobile and wireless capability), to build the professional-service capabilities to help customers deploy (exploiting time and material capabilities, billing, contract integration and multi-industry knowledge) and to convince systems integrators that the product is best-of-breed. By 2005, • Oracle will be among the top four field service providers as measured by user satisfaction and size of production base (0.7 probability).