Custom Field Service App For Construction Firm
The Result: A 50% Increase in Order Handling With the Same Back-Office Team
Summary: Atigro partnered with the Operations division of a multi-billion dollar construction management company to build a custom field service mobile app to optimize field service management; accelerating job completion, reducing administrative burden, and optimizing workflows.
The Opportunity: Automate the workflow of field services management with a comprehensive field services mobile application.
Our client, a national provider of construction management across 24 U.S. markets, was facing challenges with their legacy service management system. Their manual, paper- and email-based field service operations procedures were inefficient, unscalable, and error-prone. Misunderstandings of what was done on a repair, delivery, or pick up were common; resulting in customer dissatisfaction, administrative overhead, employee dissatisfaction, and an inability to grow.
The Operations division needed a system that could:
- Eliminate paperwork
- Prevent duplication of data
- Schedule teams and equipment correctly
- Schedule hours and tasks accurately based on available resources
- Automatically track hours worked
- Provide live status updates on equipment movement and technician availability
- Communicate with customers in real-time
- Track equipment usage and fuel consumption
- Manage equipment rental and billing
- Provide up-to-the-minute data and reports
Atigro and the Operations division teamed up to build a custom field services app to digitize their entire field service operations system that will enable them to:
- Schedule teams, equipment, and tasks without errors
- View up-to-the-minute image updates
- Track employee time
- Have confidence in the accuracy of their data and reports
- Gain complete visibility into their processes
The Solution: A custom field services app to easily manage fuel delivery, on-site services and maintenance of rental equipment, up-to-the-minute reporting, and field purchase management.
Mechanics, drivers, truck loading/unloading teams, and other tradesmen operate in fast-paced and complex environments where inefficiencies in communication, equipment rentals, and team readiness can lead to costly delays. To combat these issues and automate workflows, companies are turning to field service apps to increase accountability, provide more accurate communications, and to improve cost calculations which lead to better ROI measurements.
Efficient service management relies on the ability to schedule teams, equipment, and tasks for the right job and deliver them at the right time. This hinges on reliable communication regarding task completion and equipment needs so that equipment and personnel can be reassigned when they are free, and jobs can be closed efficiently and optimally.
Prior to the field services app, the assignment of teams and equipment to service orders (SOs) and work orders (WOs) was done manually through visual inspection and cross checking of reservation and equipment databases by one or two employees. All communications were handled verbally, through email or with physical paperwork.
Technicians tracked SOs and WOs through physical logs and often dealt with lengthy back office communications to correct issues and close orders. Additionally, timesheets were managed on paper which made time tracking and PTO requests a labor intensive activity for both technicians and back office personnel.
Field service management centers around service order, work order, and employee/team tracking. By organizing these operations into an easy-to-use platform, the custom field services app will allow employees to efficiently and effectively manage their work from the field on their mobile devices and communicate with customers and management about daily needs and accomplished tasks.
Service Order (SO) Module
Fast turnaround of equipment maintenance tasks is critical to keeping equipment in the field and allowing jobs to continue their work with minimal delays.
Using the mobile app’s comprehensive SO Module, each technician will be able to have a complete overview of working SOs assigned to their own and others teams. Managers will be able to quickly reassign jobs and trucks to different teams, sharing the workload more efficiently. Within each SO, field activities will be tracked by managing the intricacies of equipment pick-up and drop-off, service tasks, customer communications, and time tracking – all in one location.
The office staff will create the SOs, and the load and unload tickets which will be populated in the app. There they will be available for employees to assign to themselves or others, allowing work to begin immediately. Previously, the manual process of service order creation and assignment delayed the start of service due to paperwork handling and written communication on exceptions to standard order forms.
Work Order (WO) Module
WO management through the field app will allow a technician to add tasks, parts, and comments, log working time, record odometer or engine-hour readings, message customers, and navigate to sites on their mobile devices. Work orders will be created by the back office or the system after finishing at a job and assigned to employees through the app. Supervisors will be able to approve and complete work orders directly from the app, saving time and reducing lengthy legacy closure processes. In addition, we have integrated data from a fleet tracking system, so that any equipment where odometer or engine-hour data are auto-recorded, will appear in the app without the need for entry by the technician.
Credit Card Receipts & FPO Module
Efficient money management through the Credit Card Receipts and Field Purchase Order (FPO) Module will ensure that all expenses are accounted for. Field employees will be able to easily submit receipt photos and purchase information while assigning receipt items to specific SOs, WOs, or stock goods, providing clear auditable data. They will even be able to split the costs of a single receipt among multiple accounts. Finally, these records will become a part of a larger field purchase ordering system.
Time Tracking
The app will also provide an easy way to track the labor hours for time spent on service and work orders. Sick and vacation days will be easier to request and approve through the Time Tracking Module. Invalid time entries will be handled at the first management level without further manager intervention later when payroll calculations occur. Time tracked will be ready for export into a payroll system, reducing duplicate data entry and improving accuracy.
Equipment Management and Visual Inspections
Managing large equipment at scale is always a challenge since that equipment inevitably needs maintenance, repair, inspection and of course an accurate track of where it is and how it got there. Our field service app allows images and locations of equipment when delivered, picked up, and inspected. We can even allow some equipment to be inspected visually without the need for sending it to the maintenance shop, significantly reducing maintenance overhead.
Furthermore, in addition to general time tracking, the app will attach specific hours to specific work orders, service orders, and other in-house projects. This will allow the calculation of profit and loss per job and per piece of equipment, as well as an accurate overhead calculation.
The Impact: Accelerated job completion, reduced administrative burden, and enhanced productivity
Digitizating field operations simplifies inventory tracking, scheduling, dispatching, and invoicing through automated workflows and back end operations. Real-time control of the field team reduces delays and allows scalable and trackable processes to provide a better customer experience and higher operational efficiency.
With the new field service app system, removing the layers of handwritten notes, and the frequent back-and-forth verbal communication associated with them, will allow managers to easily handle the job and equipment assignment and reassignment that took so much time previously. More granular attribution of hours, activities, and reasons for issues will automatically be reported across maintenance, service, and warehouse operations. Since these records are digital they will also be reported to upper management for improved ROI and profit/loss calculations.
The custom field service app will be integrated with and sync to a back office ERP and an ordering hub, allowing for seamless workflows between field operators and equipment, service schedulers and end-customers. Business rules will automatically check assignments to prevent human scheduling errors so more time can be spent doing tasks instead of assigning them.
In addition to more seamless communication, physical paperwork will be eliminated and employees will be able to easily keep track of timesheets and job details from their mobile devices. Manual re-entry of data will be completely eliminated. By automating legacy field and back office workflows, the field service app will improve efficiency, boost employee morale, and enhance productivity.
The Bottom Line
Through the implementation of the custom field services app, our client will further transform their equipment and service management divisions by reimagining their processes of tracking activities, equipment, material, and time. Measurable improvements will be seen in operational efficiency and workforce management, accountability, and granular ROI calculations. Above all, the system will now be scalable to expand the business operations without drastically expanding the workforce.
The previous system was impossible to scale to modern needs due to the high labor overhead and frequency of errors. With the field service app, every role will now operate within well-defined and well-tracked workflows, providing high-quality and efficient service to their customers; while automation streamlines key processes and allows the company to take on more complex tasks and a wider variety of customers.
Do you need to do a better job of keeping field crews, office teams and customers in sync and informed while increasing visibility into your daily operations? Atigro’s custom field services apps help businesses manage services, activities, scheduling, invoicing, time tracking, customer communication, and more. Let’s talk about how we can customize an app to your team’s exact specifications.