For over 28 years, BCH Mechanical has provided Air Conditioning,
Plumbing, Piping, Sheet Metal and Engineering Services
throughout the State of
BCH Mechanical CFO John Fields first discovered Barbour Consulting through a referral by one of Barbour’s partners. Fields was in search of an automated solution for their manual field service operations processes. Barbour’s DFS Insights product, Digital Forms Solutions and Insights Portal, provided the answer. Fields realized the compelling benefits his service technicians would accrue if they could use DFS to eliminate their manual scheduling and field data collection. “We looked at our existing systems and began to realize how inefficient they were. Barbour gave us a winning solution that would allow us to keep as much of our existing system in place as possible. They’ve been great to work with,” stated Fields.
The Challenge
BCH’s operations were supported internally by a Timberline ERP system. However, manual processes continued to exist for field data collection and scheduling. All forms (including order forms for new parts) were still filled out with pen and paper. These forms would eventually be turned in to the main office by the field service technicians when they came back from the field. The data collected would then have to be manually re-entered into the ERP system before it could be processed. Meanwhile, field technicians had to call in to the main office using cell phones for scheduling. Technicians were required to call every time they approached or left a customer, took a lunch break, or left to go home.
These processes were highly inefficient and often produced errors or inconsistent data. There were also unnecessary lag times for data processing that created slower response times to customer problems and often delayed billing. Furthermore, field techs were annoyed with having to call in to the home office for every aspect of their scheduling. Fields decided that this process desperately needed to be automated, and he began to work with Barbour Consulting to realize the benefits of using mobile electronic forms and process automation instead.
Goals of the Project
Finding a Solution
There were several challenges to be overcome to implement a full solution for ConServ. Barbour needed to deliver a robust field data collection, scheduling and messaging solution which met ConServ’s needs, yet was quick and economical to deploy. To solve this issue, Barbour turned to the DFS Insights application suite. With DFS Insights providing the powerful, core technology and leveraging the power of a Microsoft SQL database and the .NET Framework, Barbour was able to deliver the needed solution in less time and for less cost than other providers.
Another challenge for Barbour involved system integration. The mobile field data collection solution needed to be integrated seamlessly with the existing Timberline system. As Timberline specialists, Barbour was familiar with the Timberline data structure and APIs, and understood exactly how the field data needed to be linked into Timberline. This included integration with the Timberline scheduling and dispatching technology where Barbour included capabilities in the newly created DFS product to dispatch service calls from Timberline.
Outcomes and Benefits
After the project was completed the benefits of using DFS instead of manual field data collection processes were clear. A slow, laborious process was streamlined into a fast and efficient one. Data and work order forms were now processed on Tablet PCs using Barbour’s DFS application, allowing data to be delivered back to the home office in real time. This allowed ConServ to bill and receive payment more quickly, but also provide faster customer service – work orders were in the system in less time and customers could be helped more easily. In the field, technicians were able to input data much faster on the electronic forms and had fewer problems with people from the home office reading their handwriting since they were receiving PDF copies of the forms. ConServ’s customers had no problems reviewing and signing the form on a Tablet PC; some even commented that it was easier than UPS’ common signature capture pads. On the technicians' side, calls dispatched from Timberline by DFS contained prefilled data about the customer and their service history, equipment, and Preventive Maintenance tasks which helped make the techs' job easier and provide better service. Then with scheduling and work order status, techs were able to use the time tracking feature of DFS to record when they were arriving or leaving a customer's site. This schedule information would then be sent immediately back to Timberline; there were no more unnecessary phone calls and much less of a disturbance for the techs, meaning they were able to focus more on providing satisfaction to their customers.
Fields is now rolling out the solution to the rest of ConServ’s field technicians to allow them the same increase in productivity the trial techs received when they implemented DFS into their workflow. Return on investment from time savings and decreased errors in the tech/home office process is projected to be substantial. Fields says, “Automating the data collection process of our field agents has brought us a tremendous ROI. Realistically, electronic data was the direction our company was heading anyway and DFS allowed us to make a smooth transition.”