June/July 2007

In the light of major savings achieved in the United States, Tennant Company, an international manufacturer of indoor and outdoor floor cleaning equipment, has rolled out a field service solution across its whole extensive European network.

The chosen solution, here as in the US, is an industry-specific version of Dexterra Mobile Field Service, branded ServiceLINK. This employs a Dexterra-certified SAP .NET intelligent adapter, configured to match Tennant's unique requirements, and is installed on ruggedised Panasonic ToughBook laptop computers.

ServiceLINK enables field staff to manage repairs, enter job updates, create quotes and order parts, as well as providing on-screen access to real-time inventory and product manuals.

Tennant decided to overhaul its previous paper-based field service processes to reduce the amount of administrative tasks its service technicians were having to complete. It evaluated more than 25 mobile solutions before choosing Dexterra's.

Benefits achieved in the US include a reduction from up to 10 days to less than tw0 days in the billing cycle, along with reduced part order errors, billing errors and customer enquiries and improved customer satisfaction. The company says 85 per cent of service orders are now processed without any manual intervention

The system is being implemented in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Benelux, Spain, Portugal and Italy.