David Bell, md of Estimation (right), explains how a combination of the right software and mobile technologies can bring efficiencies to service and maintenance work
AS ISSUES such as cost of ownership and life cycle costing become real issues for commercial and public sector organisations, they come to appreciate the benefits of maintenance as a way of optimising performance and plant life. The result is a burgeoning service and maintenance market that many contractors are finding very lucrative.

This is not to say that service and maintenance is an easy option. Compared to installation work, it’s a very competitive environment and contractors that do well are those that manage the operation very tightly.

Experience shows that the key to running a successful maintenance operation is good management of resources. Providing a good service is one thing, achieving and maintaining a profit is quite another.

Avoiding unnecessary call-outs, combining preventative work with call-out visits, keeping track of all operatives and fulfilling service level agreements (SLAs) are all critical.

As with most areas of modern business management, software has an important role to play in managing a maintenance business, but it’s important to opt for an easy-to-use package that will meet the specific needs of building services and refrigeration maintenance. Quite recently, it has become possible to combine specialised service management software with hand-held, mobile devices without it costing an arm and a leg in specialist hardware and software licences.

A fundamental requirement of service management software is that it keeps track of the servicing frequency of all of the items of plant covered by a particular contract. It also needs to be capable of listing spares required, ideally with links to purchasing for ordering spares and automatic notification when those items are in stock.

In addition, service management software should track the status of each call and give you a warning when jobs have not been assigned to operatives within pre-set time frames. And it should be capable of handling complex multiple site contracts.

Above and beyond the day-to-day operational considerations, it makes sense to use the processing power of computers to assist in the strategic management of the operation. Almost certainly, your biggest overhead is staff, so this is the first area to look at, but with manual management methods, or inappropriate software, it can be difficult to keep track of who is where and what they’re doing.

For example, if an operative is sent out to a reactive job, it would be sensible if he or she also carried out any routine maintenance that was due while on site. This helps to make the most effective use of resources and to iron out peaks and troughs in the workload.

Keeping track

Ironing out the peaks and troughs relies heavily on knowing when a job has been finished and being able to direct operatives to the next job as quickly as possible. Mobile technologies are clearly an advantage but many contractors have been put off by the high capital costs of investing in expensive hardware that can’t be used for anything else.

Recent technical advances, however, have enabled service management software to be used on just about any hand-held device in common use. This includes mobile phones, PDAs and XDAs, tablet and hand-held PCs and specialist devices such as Blackberry. Where mobile phones are used, the client can be issued with a PIN number for signing off the job.

The basis of this breakthrough is basing the software on technologies that all of these devices use, such as Java and Microsoft’s .NET. In this way, mobile service management software can be rolled out using devices the operatives already have, with no extra investment in hardware. The software licences can also be acquired on a ‘pay as you go’ basis so all of the costs of implementing mobile technologies can be met from revenue budgets.

In order to fully address the needs of a modern service and maintenance company, these solutions should be based primarily on the standard GSM mobile phone network, while also able to take advantage of the less reliable GPRS or 3G networks where these are available.

Ideally, there should also be a ‘push’ element so that software upgrades can be sent to the mobile device – or the software can be turned on if the engineer has forgotten to do so.

Avoiding mistakes

When staff are involved in a mixture of reactive and preventative work, it is easy to miss chargeable items, which can be a very costly mistake. Service management software is able to flag up chargeable items and remind you to invoice the client. It might even link to your accounts software to automatically raise invoices.

It can also prove expensive if an operative without the necessary skills is sent to a job. Again, using a computer’s ability to store, match and manage information is the ideal way to ensure that the most appropriate staff are sent to the right jobs. In larger organisations with many operatives to manage, the software should also be able to tell you about those operatives’ location and status.

Just as you might use job costing software on the installation side of the business, it is helpful to be able to automatically track the cost and performance of each contract, so you can assess its profitability at a glance. This facility quickly highlights any areas of concern and flags up the need to take a close look.

Last but not least, service management should be fully scalable so it can grow with the needs of your company. You may start as a single user but as you grow you may need more operators and having to switch to another software package is very disruptive.

The trend towards outsourcing is definitely very good news for contracting businesses offering service and maintenance, but it can also be a double-edged sword as this culture brings with it highly sophisticated measurement of key performance indicators to assess the supplier’s performance. The key to excelling in this sector is to take effective control of the operation and manage it efficiently at every level.

Estimation Ltd

0121 704 3221