EditWhat is a Field Services Management System?
"Field services management system" is commonly the name given to a database system that is designed to coordinate and keep track of the activities of a staff of mobile workers. Such a staff of mobile workers are typically given names such as "Engineers", "Installers", "Delivery Personnel", "Service Agents", "Assessors", "Inspectors", "Surveyors", "Meter Readers", "Adjustors", "Sales Workers". The roles that these mobile staffs can have may vary widely from one business sector to another, but what ties all of these groups of staff together, is that they all have a requirement to send and receive address, location and related task information to and from a central administrative office, or number of administrative offices.
Modern field services management systems eliminate around 80% of the administrative work associated with the management of a field services staff. They achieve this by sending and receiving information to and from field services operators directly into and out of the central office database, with minimal and sometimes even zero intervention from administrative personnel. Very often this is sent to and from the field operative via a "smart device" such as PDA or PocketPC. This eliminates the need for paper work and the enevitable transcription errors that go with it.
Dorchester Computer Software Field Service Management Systmes
Examples
Lets consider some examples of field services management systems, the traditional paper based systems, and what the new electronic system replacements are able to achieve over and above the traditional systems.
Edit(1) White goods installation, service and repairs
Typical Existing Paper based system
Every job, whether it be a delivery or installation or repair has associated paper work. A customer signature must be obtained and original paper work must be stored. Relevant information must be printed by office staff onto delivery or visit documents. After the job the installer / repairers notes must then be copied by office staff into the database system together with the status of the job, completed or ongoing. Parts and labour associated with the work done on the job must be recorded on paper and then copied into the office system.
Electronic system
The electronic system passes information to and from the installer / repairer / engineer or plumber via the PocketPC PDA smart device or phone. The address and job information is passed directly to the installer at the end of each day ready to prepare for the following day's work. Information can be updated on the office system dynamically, and synchronised with information on the field operator's device. All information is captured electronically and stored electronically. (See the note about the security of electronically stored information below.) The customer signature is entered directly onto the surface of the PDA. Parts supplied or stock purchased during the process can be entered by the engineer as the job proceeds. Purchase orders can be monitored on screen back at HQ. Van stock levels can also be tracked, together with warehouse stock, ordered stock and damaged stock.
Edit(2) Billboard posting
Typical Existing Paper based system
As long as the reliability of board posters cannot be counted on 100%, it is hard to guarantee 100% posting, and how in any case do you prove to a client that this has been achieved. Traditional methods involve having a set of more responsible staff, who monitor the reliability of the posting staff, but there is no way to guarantee 100% proof of posting without having these auditing staff members visit every posting location, resulting in 2 visits for every poster put up, or else a lower service level guarantee.
Electronic system
Using cheap readily available technologies such as 3G or GPRS, the billboard poster can receive posting address information sent directly to the device from the central office database. This can include the code numbers of the posters to be displayed at each location. After the poster is put up, the operative takes a photograph of the new poster being displayed at the billboard location, using the same PDA PocketPC device to take a digital photograph. This photograph is tagged with the job, visit, and address information for the particular posting in question, and can also be tagged with G.P.S. location information, to provide even more reliability that a given posting has been done at a given time in a given location by a given operative. The operative may also be required to sign on the PDA screen to confirm they are there when the photograph is taken and the work carried out. The digital photograph, signature, locations information, status and circumstances noted by the operative can then be transmitted immediately via 3G/GPRS and the internet back to the central office database system, which in turn can be used to power a customer portal, showing the photographs, and G.P.S. location information.
You are now in a position to offer 100% proof of posting. Can your competitors say the same?
Edit(3) Security Officer rounds and alarm responses
Typical Existing Paper based system
Security company administrators must manage and coordinate a whole array of varying types of tasks: mobile rounds, alarm responses, keyholder interventions. These schedules of work are typically generated manually off the back of contracts which for a given customer may span multiple sites or single sites. The scheduling process is labour-intensive, at every stage - not least at the level of administration.
Further to this, the security guard must record notes and observations at each of the sites visited, they must manage their own time keeping, and spending a specific number of minutes at each of the sites they visit, they must deal with interruptions to a mobile round, such as attending to an alarm response, and then return to a point part-way through a schedule. Notes taken at each location need to be captured and summarised in reporting back to clients, and demonstrating service level agreements have been met.
Electronic system
The central office system can automatically generate mobile round site visits driven off the back of customer contracts, and allocate these to available guards who are on shift. The necessary visits are then sent directly the individual guard's PDA's together with navigation information. When the guard arrives at a given site for inspection, the guard registers this by simply on screen button selections, pressing on screen to indicate having arrived. The screen then shows a count-down clock, which counts down the required allocated number of minutes to stay at that site, whilst also allowing the guard to note down observations and security status, directly onto the PDA.
Information transfer to and from the device is continuous, allowing ongoing monitoring of the progress of each guard on any given mobile round, and feeding the captured data straight into the office database system.
As the system knows the location of any given guard on mobile rounds, alarm responses can be allocated in the light of this information.
Edit(4) Fire safety inspections
Typical Existing Paper based system
Paper records must be kept of each visit, each piece of fire safety equipment that has been checked, expiry dates for each extinguisher, implementation of new legislation and recommendations given. Compliance with regulations must be monitored.
Customer signatures must be captured, and in some cases photographic records taken.
Renewal and replacement dates must be monitored, and annual inspections recorded.
Electronic system
Most if not all of the existing data that is currently captured by inspectors on paper forms and notes can be captured onto a cheap PDA device, which feeds directly into the main office database system by transmitting its data over the internet.
The integrated main office system database can produce automated reports: on a per customer basis,
such as the findings of a survey or inspection, confirmation of compliance to fire safety regulations, or the need to make alterations and costed quotes for any such provisions.
Management reports across inspectors, regions, and business sectors,
which allow for the monitoring of performance of safety officers, identify problems, and improve staff performance.
Edit(5) Lift servicing and repair
Typical Existing Paper based system
Electronic system
Edit(6) Commercial and residential property sales
Typical Existing Paper based system
Electronic system
Data transferred from mobile worker PDA to your business web site within minutes
(7) Boiler servicing and plumbing
Typical Existing Paper based system
Electronic system
Edit(8) Point of sale display stand installation
Edit(9) Accreditation of construction site workers
Typical Existing Paper based system
Electronic system
Edit(10) Courier and delivery services
Typical Existing Paper based system
Electronic system
EditBusiness problems and business infrastructure solutions
EditOff the shelf systems vs. Bespoke development
Business administrators choosing a CRM, FSM or Financial, Stock or Document management system, have typically and traditionally had a rather stark choice.
Business administrators commonly face a stark choice between using "off-the-shelf" data management systems which inevitably have some degree of mismatch with the specific business processes of your business, and bespoke tailor-made systems, the obtaining of which is fraught with hazards for the unwary, as every experienced business administrator knows only too well.
On the one hand ...
you could opt for an "off-the-shelf" system which would hopefully come fairly cheap and cheerful, although when reading the small print of the licensing agreements, it may actually not turn out so cheap. The off-the-shelf system would at least be a known quantity. There would be no work involved in specifying what you wanted it to do. You would simply look around for a system that met as many of your needs as you could find, and then you would buy it, and install it. There might be some period of adjustment while your staff get used to the quirks of this new piece of software, but relatively speaking the system is available immediately. The primary draw-back you might think of this approach is that the off-the-shelf system is "stuck in its ways". Its ready to roll-out, exactly as it says, straight off-the-shelf, but it maybe doesn't allow you to operate in the just exactly the way that your business processes are organised. As a result of this inflexibility, a series of "work-arounds" have to be conceived, that allow you to fit your business processes to the mold of the off-the-shelf product, or meld the off-the-shelf product to your business processes.
The fit of the off-the-shelf software system is not tailored, in just the same way that a suit from Burtons is not tailored. You may be able to get it a variety of sizes that come close to the shape of your business, but your business is unique, and the off-the-shelf software was not tailored to match it.
On the other hand ...
We have the bespoke database solution. And until as a business administrator you have had experience of a couple of "bespoke database projects" under your belt, you might wonder why anyone ever takes the "off-the-shelf" route at all. Surely a tailored product, made-to-measure, that matches the business processes of your business did ought to be worth a little bit extra money. Certainly that ought to be true, unless we are talking great big extra "load's-a-money"... and very often we are not.
Why then is the mere mention or even thought of a bespoke database project, tailored to your company's business processes, enough to strike dread, terror and fear, into the hearts of so many business administrators?
There are a few different ways to explain this to anyone who has not experienced it first hand. Consider that any such project may be liable to any or sometimes even all of the following difficulties.
When the project was initially conceived, the client buying the software was not certain exactly what they needed so they left various details up to software development company to make decisions on. When they come to test the project they discover that these details are in fact make-or-brake to the useability of the software, so they ask the development company to change these details. The development company then tells them that these details have been embedded so deeply into the design the product that to alter them would require a major re-write, perhaps even a complete re-write of the entire system. Neither the purchasing client, not the software provider want to be the one who is paying for this re-write.
When the specification for the software was made the circumstances were such that the product was beneficial. But by the time the product is delivered perhaps 6 months or more later, the business processes have changed or the business case for the product no longer exists. The software developer is now asking us to pay for a piece of software which we have no use for.
Tailoring of predesigned modules ... the best of both worlds
In my 20 years of experience designing, developing and deploying database systems, I have developed and incorporated a number of strategies and methodologies which make the process of implementing a tailor-made database system a much more attractive and viable proposition. I commonly use a number of "part-baked" modules, together with frameworks that support them and allow them to mesh seamlessly together. These "part-baked" modules are open to extensive refinement, and if necessary, modification to make them fully appropriate to the precise details of a specific business-case.
This approach allows me to provide astonishing turn-around times, and incredible prices, in the delivery of tailor-made database systems - the "best of both" choice.
EditCost <-> Benefit Analysis
Leveraging Cheap New Technologies
3G, GPRS and the celular network
Web services and the internet
Pocket PCs, Phones, PDAs and other smart "devices"
Security of electronically stored information
To ensure the security of this data, off-site backup is maintained and updated on a daily basis. This is known as disaster recovery. Although initially the feeling might be that paper-based data is more secure, consider the impact of an office fire. Electronic data storage can be kept easily backed up in multiple locations, for example a backup copy at each branch which covers all the other branches of the organisation. It is very unlikely that you will have simultaneous fires at all office branches.
EditThe 10-day prototype challenge at DorchesterSoftware
Dorchester Software offers our world famous "10-day prototype challenge".
We believe that we can deliver a proto-type bespoke database system, tailored to support business processes that may be completely unique to your company, or sector, within 10 business days - yes, that is 10 business days!
This prototype lies at about the half-way point to the delivery of your final system.
The system will be reasonably robust, although being a prototype it won't necessarily have absolutely every nuance and detail of the final system you are looking for, it will be an operational system which is a significant step up from anything you currently have available, and will provide a platform, and basis of discussion for designing the system which your business needs.
For a limited time only (ends 31st March 2008), the price for delivery of this prototype is an incredible £1000+VAT, with no further obligation to proceed with purchase of any subsequent final release system. Obviously this price does not cover the cost of providing such a system, but we are so confident in how impressed you will be by our prototype, that we are happy to make this offer knowing that when you have seen it, you will want to proceed with placing an order for a final release system.