Mobility and 4D Field Services

GPS Coordinates and Time

I have been researching and pondering the concept of the 4th dimension this week, and how it relates to enterprise mobility and field services. First I looked up the meaning of 3D or 3 dimensional.  Three dimensional is made up of length, width and height.  These are basically GPS coordinates.  With GPS coordinates you can find and identify a location on the earth or map.  If you have GPS coordinates for your mobile workforce or mobile resources you will know where they are located, right?  WRONG!!!  The only thing that you know is that at a specific time (when the GPS coordinates were captured), they were located at those locations.  Time is a very important component.  If your GPS coordinates were captured last week, they are not likely to be accurate today?

As I hinted above, the 4th dimension is time, and it is critical to managing real-time field services.  You must add time to length, width and height to make 4D.  When you have the added value of time, you can do many things.  For example:

1. Monitor travel times by capturing departure and arrival times.
2. Monitor work start and stop times at a particular location.
3. Monitor job status at a particular location.
4. Analyse the best schedules based on locations, travel times, job statuses etc.
5. Capture KPIs and analyze them.

4D field services is the goal to achieve service optimization.  However, it is only possible when your mobile workforce and PIVs (Performance Impact Variables) are connected and using mobile technologies.  I will write more about PIVs in my next article.

As many of you know my mantra is, "Mobile technologies without mobile strategies is wasted."  There are a lot of interesting things that can be done with mobile technologies to provide a company with competitive advantages if they have a good strategy.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Volunteer

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Unified View of Mobile Field Operations

I read an article recently about how SAP's customer PG&E once had 67 different local offices dispatching field services crews.  These 67 offices managed 1,500 crews that consisted of approximately 5,000 specialists taking care of 50 million customers.  Each of these local offices only managed and had visibility to their own region's work and crew schedules.  As a result, some regions were very busy, some not.  This resulted in high administrative costs in the 67 offices, and an inefficient use of the field services crews.

PG&E ultimately consolidated all of their dispatching and field services management into two centers and standardized on a central scheduling solution.  This resulted in a unified view of the workforce's schedule. 

Today, the central dispatchers at PG&E have the visibility and management flexibility to schedule or reschedule work and crews to where they are most needed across regions.  This solution consisted of ClickSoftware's ServiceOptimization Suite of tools including ClickSchedule, ClickPlan, ClickAnalyze and ClickForecast integrated with SAP’s work order application.

PG&E is a great example of the implementation of a concept called "Network Centric Operations."  The ability to have a unified real-time view of all of your assets, work/missions, schedules and resources so that you can manage them to most efficiently accomplish the mission. 

I have been studying with keen interest recently how the military is incorporating these kinds of strategies to do more with less.  I believe this goal is equally important in the commercial sector.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group on Linkedin

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Read The M2M News Monthly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

HTML5 and Workforce Management and Service Optimization Solutions

I have been following the developments around HTML5 with interest so was intrigued by the following announcement.

This week ClickSoftware announced the availability of ClickMobile Professional, a major release built with the cutting-edge abilities of HTML5.

The flexibility of HTML5 technology allows for a “hybrid” deployment of the application:  as a web-based application, it requires no download or installation.  In “no-connectivity” situations, technicians can still use the application offline and when connectivity is back, store and forward messages.

With ClickMobile Professional the entire service ecosystem – in the field, in dispatch and call center, in HR and in the warehouse – gains real-world, real-time visibility and flexibility for the unpredictable service world where surprises are the norm and real time updates are a must.

Field Service Automation ROIs and Service Optimization, Part 1

Andy Wright, in a recent blog article wrote, "According to a recent study by the Aberdeen Group; organizations that adopt a scheduling solution see on average a 12 percent improvement in workforce utilization. While many field service organizations are slow to adopt a scheduling solution, those considered “Best-in-Class” are 50 percent more likely to adopt and implement resource planning tools that harmonize the execution capabilities of their scheduling applications."

From personal experience I would agree with the Aberdeen Group's findings.  When you consider all of the different areas where a service company can receive a positive ROI, not automating a field service organization seems simply irresponsible.

Here are some of the most basic areas to look for ROIs:

• Save the office staff's data entry time. Enter clean, valid data in the field using your smartphone and have it automatically synchronize with your office business software application.
• Dispatch service or work order information directly to your field worker's mobile device in real time. This improves work efficiency and customer care.
• Synchronize data from the field, so you don't have to drive into the office to deliver your paper work.
• Provide access to database information anywhere you go. This can mean customer history, product documentation, warranty information, inventory information, time sheets, work schedules and much more. This creates efficiencies both for the field worker and the office staff.
• Use bar code scanning on your mobile device to scan equipment, inventory, buildings, products, etc. Scan a bar code and have all the relevant information on your asset immediately available for your review on the screen of your smartphone.
• Immediate invoicing - complete work in the field and immediately print the invoice and hand it to the customer for collection. This improves cash flow and reduces collection issues.
• Create an immediate audit trail of work and locations by integrating GPS to your invoices and work orders. Detail work completed in that location.
• Take digital photos of before and after work to document tasks and the completion of work to reduce costly invoice disputes.

In part 2 of this article I will take a deeper look at ROIs available from mobilizing field services.  In the meantime, SAP mobility partner, Clicksoftware has a short video that describes how to mobilize various tasks in the field.

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Kevin Benedict, SAP Mentor, SAP Top Contributor, Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst
CEO/Principal Consultant, Netcentric Strategies LLC
Phone +1 208-991-4410

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility consultant, mobility analyst, writer and Web 2.0 marketing professional. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.