The
today's demanding customer often obliges companies to service him
on-site by dispatching field engineers to his business location
or living quarters. SARA2000 enables your organizations
to successfully carry out the twin pillars of an effective and profitable
field service operation: the proper and efficient scheduling
of the field force, and the provision of field engineers with
the detailed information that allows them to resolve problems on
their first visit.
The
main functionalities of SARA2000 Field Service include:
Schedules
field engineers: SARA2000 makes possible for organizations to
efficiently manage their field service operations by assigning
only the best-qualified and available technicians for each service
call. A feature called Schedule Board lets authorized users
view each engineer's calendar and daily route, and to assign and
re-assign engineers by using a simple drag-and-drop function. At
the same time, each engineer's skills and qualifications are displayed,
eliminating the risk that service calls can be assigned to the personnel
who is not qualified for this particular job. If needed, field engineers
can be assigned automatically based on the pre-defined rules.
Decreases
traveling time: To coordinate the scheduling of engineers,
specific geographical work zones for each service representative
can be defined. The result is that each field engineers becomes
responsible for a particular geographical zone, without having to
frequently travel outside of it and incur large travel expenses.
Provides
field engineers with the relevant information: SARA effectively
solves the long-standing problem of transferring the appropriate
information to the field force which can be located hundreds of
miles away from the service center, by providing interfaces to wireless
mobile agents. By using either a laptop computer or a wireless
mobile agent, field engineers can easily receive and view their
scheduled daily routes and assigned work orders. In addition, customer
location, history, and comments, detailed product information and
configuration data, contract/warranty coverage, and repair instructions
are all available to the technician. The consequence is that a remote
field engineers can be just as well informed as if he was actually
present in the service center.
Requests
Parts: Inventory parts required to complete the service
call can be requested via the system either by the dispatcher or
the field engineer using a laptop or a wireless mobile agents. The
parts-ordering capability is so efficient, that the field engineer
often arrives at his customer's location with the requested parts
already being present on-site. The received parts subsequently become
assigned to the relevant work order.
Captures
billing information: In order to ensure that the field service
dispatch charges are correctly calculated, SARA automatically captures
the parts usage, labor time, travel time, and repair notations
for each service call. The system also allows the users to define
various price rates for the specific product models, product lines,
inventory parts, labor time, types of repair, repair functions,
individual customers, warranty /non warranty work, e.t.a.
Thus, once the service is completed, the total charge is automatically
calculated as SARA2000 combines the captured data with the appropriate
price rates.
Transfers
field data to the headquarters: Just as field engineers can
use laptops or mobile agents to access the appropriate data sent
from the headquarters, so they can send their reports, completed
work orders, or any other information back to the headquarters.
The data is received and uploaded into the corporate system, and
a paperless two-way communications route is established for improved
headquarters-field interaction and efficiency.
Tracks
service call status: An authorized personnel in the headquarters
can view the service call status at any time. This functionality
allows the management to monitor the activities of its personnel
to ensure the optimal efficiency levels and measure engineer's performance/productivity.
In addition, a list of work orders organized by selected categories
(by a geographical zone, by a field engineer) can be pulled up from
the system.
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