A client’s judgment of field service engineers is based on three main points: Their speed, reliability, and responsiveness. Regardless of project size or repetition of business, these factors can make or break a company’s reputation.
Delays and poor performance mean a loss of business, as well as higher operational costs and continuing delays. In an increasingly competitive construction market, small issues can have an effect far beyond what is expected.
Despite the risks, many construction companies still face delays. Recent data reports that 98% of construction projects in the US face delays. The causes of these delays range from reliance on manual admin to communication delays and even a lack of visibility.
To streamline how their businesses operate, many organizations are relying on a connected field service management tool. Such tools are helping reduce operational delays and helping field engineers spend less time coordinating and more time resolving issues.
But many are still wondering how much these tools actually help, and what they can do to improve response times. To help understand the benefits of automation, here are 4 key ways it can help businesses.
Automated Job Scheduling and Dispatch
When organizing field service engineers, many still rely on an inefficient workflow. Things like manual scheduling increase the risk of delays, as well as uneven assignment of workload, which can potentially lead to high employee stress and overwork.
Automation gives the flexibility to auto-assign based on given criteria and priority. As well as this, when used correctly, automation can be used to simplify routing, as well as build more efficient routes.
These changes mean that engineers receive their jobs faster and so can start work sooner. Not just this, but it removes the time needed for management to create the assignments, giving staff more time to address other priorities. More efficient routing means that traveling between sites is kept trimmed and no more than necessary.
Real-Time Status Updates
The disconnect between those in the field and those back at the office means that there is a high risk that key information is only seen after a delay. This means that both engineers and office teams work with outdated information.
Automating status updates means that job progress is kept and communicated immediately. It also means that status information is shared across the team, so management has a clearer idea about current progress and current capacity for changes.
Having these immediate and constant updates reduces delays caused by the repeated need for calls and manual check-ins, which prevent engineers from moving on to the next job. As well as this, office teams will be able to stay up-to-date with progress, allowing easier and faster decision-making.
Automated Access to Job Information
A large loss of time for engineers is simply looking for the information they need to do their job. Information that is kept in fragmented systems and in different places slows down progress, and this loss of time can quickly add up.
Automation helps this by keeping all relevant information in a centralized location. It also helps staff locate and access relevant information automatically. Automation also reduces the need for manual and time-consuming information hand-over, as they can access the information they need on their own and when they need it.
This can help engineers in two ways. First, quicker access to information means that they can arrive at their job better prepared and with a more complete understanding of client needs without taking extra time. Secondly, response times are faster as the time between learning and action is reduced.
Faster Reporting and Workflow Completion
Companies that still rely on manual paperwork and reports find that this work is time-consuming and can lead to errors that themselves require more time to fix. This leads to a delay in follow-up actions and a slower overall job completion.
Automation helps by automating many of the manual processes, allowing for faster reporting as well as allowing progress to trigger the next stage of the workflow automatically. It also helps ensure speedier incident reports and filing when they happen.
By reducing the admin burden placed on the engineers, it helps them finish their work faster. This speed means that transitions between tasks are faster too. As well as this, when there is something out of the ordinary, it can be dealt with faster, preventing longer delays.
An engineer’s response times are consistently affected by friction within their work process, not just level of technical skill or outside factors. This friction is most felt in times engineers need to rely on communication with other teams, or perform repetitive low-output work. When communication is difficult, and the work is overbearing, delays are common.
Automation helps by keeping engineers working at a pace that is demanded by their fast-moving environments.