Jan/Feb 2006

Just mobilising your workforce management may not be enough, as warewash specialist Winterhalter found out. Automated job scheduling can capitalise on the benefits

You might imagine that introducing a mobile workforce solution would bring reward enough in itself for most operators. That was what the team at Winterhalter thought when they put in a wireless service management system some time ago.

Certainly it has plenty of checks in the right boxes. Its field service team have been issued with Compaq iPaq handheld computers, and can use them to receive jobs and update the central system in real time. A recent innovation has added further refinement, providing engineers with a new tool for identifying and ordering parts while out on jobs.

However, the team gradually realised that they needed more. David Parsons Winterhalter's UK finance director, also heads up IT for the company, and has been responsible for improving the operational efficiency of the service division since 2000.

 

"In an organisation like ours it's about managing the whole process efficiently," he says, "from booking in the job, allocation to the engineer, fixing the machine, right through to raising the final invoice.

"We improved our service management system, connected our engineers wirelessly and removed the paperwork in the field, but we were still left with the distinct feeling that we were not getting the best from our resources."

Winterhalter is a market-leading supplier of "warewash" systems - high-quality glass and dishwashing machines for pubs, restaurants, retailers, hotels, hospitals and other commercial businesses. The package includes pre-sales advice, hardware, design and installation, training, service and maintenance.

Its national service division employs over 80 engineers working nationwide, servicing Winterhalter's own machines and also third-party equipment. National account customers include Whitbread, Mitchells & Butlers, Spirit Group, Green King, Regent Inns and Sainsbury's.

Until recently Winterhalter employed four staff members to work solely on job allocation. The problem was clear, as Parsons explains. "It was obvious that our allocation team were being continually challenged, and that our customers were demanding a level of service that we were finding increasingly difficult to satisfy. You would only have to have an engineer report in sick and the whole schedule would need to be revisited.

"It was clear that we had the resources in the field to do the job but we did not have the ability to make the most of what we had."

He says the team also began to examine drive times between service visits, geographical location of engineers, parts availability and skill sets in an effort to determine how to improve its service levels.

Early in 2004 Winterhalter began discussions with scheduling and resource optimisation specialist 360 Technologies. "The 'Holy Grail' was automated despatch that would take into account all the service parameters that we could throw at the system," Parsons says. "360 took a month's worth of our historic operational data and ran it through their system. We were sceptical at first, but when we saw the results we were impressed by the marked level of improvement."

The next stage was to run a pilot with a small number of engineers in real time. Winterhalter took six engineers from its West Midlands region and ran the system for a period of two weeks. The results showed a significant improvement over the manual approach, so by the beginning of 2005 the roll-out had begun.

Winterhalter's call centre teams now enter the jobs into the service management system as before. Seamless integration enables the complete system to run in conjunction with 360's Dynamic Scheduling Engine, allocating the jobs to engineers and monitoring progress in real time. 360 built the whole real-time interface without requiring any changes to the existing service management/mobile system or involvement by their suppliers.

The system can be "tweaked" to provide efficiencies - for example by changing an engineer's area of operation. It has highlighted areas where engineer coverage was too low to sustain current service levels, and also provides statistical information and reporting.

One person now handles job allocation, monitoring the system and interacting with the field engineers. An assistant provides backup as required. The time spent talking to engineers on the phone has decreased and this has meant that mobile costs have come down. Former allocation staff have been re-deployed in the service centre.

In the field, engineers no longer have to manage their time, and spend less time travelling between jobs, drive fewer miles and use less fuel, and are therefore more productive. Service levels have improved, and the number of jobs completed each day has increased.

"The call centre is busier than ever, but the difference is that we now know what is happening simply by looking at the status screen", Parsons says. "The air of semi-controlled panic has gone and been replaced by quiet efficiency."

Other changes brought about by the system were perhaps less expected. Demonstrating the system to potential customers, for example, has helped to win new business. Service has been improved by recruiting engineers in geographical areas where the system highlighted problems.