Project-Based Operation Processing: Efficient Processes for Complex Operations

At a congress, the service managers Mr. Bohr and Mr. Mühlhaus get into conversation with each other. Both are at the conference because they want to optimize their service and, above all, the order processing in their service department.

Mr Bohr has been the service manager of a medium-sized industrial company for 12 years and coordinates 20 in-house technicians and ten service providers with temporary staff. Mr Mühlhaus, on the other hand, moved to the back office of a telephone service provider a few years ago and manages 50 service technicians.

The two men have the same goal: They want to use a digital tool to make their office and field staff more effective so they can grow their service business even though there's a shortage of skilled workers.

Two Service Managers, Two Use Cases

As they chat, they both realize that what they need is different.

Let's start with Mr. Mühlhaus. As we said before, he coordinates 50 service technicians at a telephone service provider. They sell internet and phone connections and entertainment packages, which they then set up for customers at their premises. The technicians are based in a specific region in Germany and are provided with a laptop, measuring device, spare parts, and a car. On average, a technician looks after four customers and drives 120 kilometers on a typical workday. The technician is at the customer's house for about an hour. They fill out a one-page report, which the customer signs. The technician's typical tasks include: installing a new entertainment or Internet connection, fixing any problems, and maintaining and checking main distribution frames and cable distributors. Once the job is done, the technician moves on to the next customer.

Let's move on to Mr. Bohr, who works for an industrial company. This company is all about building stranders for the cable industry. The stranders are used to make steel cables with a diameter of 30 cm, which are then taken up onto a winder with a capacity of 600 tons. Mr. Bohr says new installations take three to nine months, and maintenance, inspections, and repairs take one to four weeks. He and his teams are working all over the globe, in places like Malaysia, Pakistan, Brazil, and the USA.
Mr. Bohr oversees a team of 20 in-house technicians. If there aren't enough technicians on hand or if there are specific skills needed, extra help from service providers can be brought in. On top of that, they have to send out special tools and custom-made spare parts to the site.

Normally, the technician gets the info a few weeks before the job.
He always talks to the customer in advance about how long the machine is going to be down for maintenance. Mr. Bohr also has to arrange flights, rental cars, hotels, visas, and work permits for the team of technicians. All the protocols, instructions, and documents for carrying out the operation end up filling an entire workbook with paper.
The techs work together as a team to make sure they're all on the same page and bring the right skills to the table. For instance, a project engineer might go on a trip with an electrical engineer and an automation engineer.

For each day on site, the technicians have to log the hours, record the progress of the project, and document any irregularities, additional services, and spare parts installed. For projects that last a few months, employees are usually assigned to different phases of the project. That means not every team member has to be on-site the whole time.

Requirements for FSM Software

Mr. Bohr and Mr. Mühlhaus quickly figured out that their operations are very different and that the main difference is in quantity and complexity. So, their needs are pretty different, too.

Mr. Mühlhaus wants to optimize routes with GPS, integrate navigation, give customers access to a service portal, set up a ticket system with prioritization, create shift schedules, and record deployment times by the minute.

Mr. Bohr is looking for a tool to help him plan projects. For him, it all comes down to a few key things: a way to communicate across departments, a view of what's needed for a project, what resources are available, and an understanding of what skills are needed. He'd also like to digitize the extensive workbook. He also wants to be able to set up new operations quickly, so they can be planned in advance and recurring maintenance orders can be placed early in the annual planning cycle. It's also important to be able to plan special tools and vehicles in addition to technicians for an assignment.

But there are also some similarities in what they're looking for: They'd both like a messenger that connects the office and field service, an app for the technicians, and a clear planning tool for the office staff. A real-time transfer of documents and data can speed up the internal processing of the operations. Being able to sign documents electronically is also useful. They both aim to reduce the number of manual processes, verbal agreements, various Excel spreadsheets, and communication channels. The FSM tool needs to integrate seamlessly into the existing system landscape and eliminate the need for multiple data entries.