In the service management sector, efficiency is key to remaining competitive. Yet, many businesses are still using legacy or even manual systems to manage their scheduling; both of which bake in inefficiency and limit the growth of your business.
In a sector where reactive callouts are frequent and adaptability is the name of the game, is it time to consider how a strategic platform would help your business improve its efficiency and add futureproofing?
Many companies and managers within the sector are quite happy with the old way of running things: It has worked for years; people are used to it; it's too hard to change and it's not that bad really.
But, if you’re reading this post, it's clear either you or someone in your team needs some convincing to digitise your scheduling. Perhaps you’re undergoing some expansion, or friction has occurred within the business surrounding profitability, errors, recruiting, retention either way, it's about time for revision.
Here are seven ways dynamic workforce scheduling can improve your efficiency:
Improves your first-time fix rate
Your first time fix rate (FTFR) is one of the key KPIs to measure the efficiency of your business, and optimised scheduling massively supports this.
Using dynamic scheduling software, your system can assign a job to the engineer with the best availability, most appropriate skill level and who has the most relevant parts in their van already, maximising the chances of a first-time fix.
Improving your job planning process is considered crucial to improving your FTFR, and often manual scheduling can leave operations vulnerable to human error, such as not allowing an engineer sufficient time to achieve a first-time fix.
In such a fiercely competitive industry, a suboptimal route to a maintenance job or the lack of a crucial part could be the difference between you and a competitor completing a first-time fix.
Read our blog post: How Enterprise Service Management Systems Improve First time Fix Rates
Less mundane tasks, more productivity
So much time is lost to manually updating and amending your current system in both the back-office and in the field. If you could have a lot of that time back, what would you do instead?
Firstly, effective workflows within a robust mobile application should reduce engineer admin and improve efficiency and accuracy of compliance certification documentation.
In the back-office the automation of processes removes mundane tasks making roles more fulfilling with a knock-on impact on improved retention and less HR recruitment burden. You can probably think of at least ten more fulfilling, higher-level tasks that require your attention.
Automating tasks that were once the responsibility of a human is becoming the new norm, enabling your team to spend time on more important tasks that will improve your efficiency, productivity and, as a result, profitability.
Adaptive and responsive
Out-dated scheduling process and practices are far less likely to have the level of adaptability that the industry requires, especially when responding to reactive callouts while also ensuring planned preventative maintenance is not only completed but done efficiently.
Rather than wasting valuable time and resources sending multiple engineers to the same location for different maintenance jobs, dynamic scheduling will maximise tool time and minimise driving time – which adds to efficiency, reduces fuel cost and co2 emissions.
Not only does this optimise your engineer’s time, but fewer repeat callouts will also result in a reduction in labour costs for your business.
The automation of the mundane by a good system will significantly improve the ratio between your back-office admin staff and field-based resources. further reducing your labour costs.
Reduces carbon emissions
Alongside improving your team’s productivity and efficiency, fewer callouts mean optimising the efficiency of your vehicles.
With engineers stacking local jobs into their workload with the use of dynamic map scheduling to find efficient routes to maintenance jobs, Aeromark can help reduce your company’s carbon emissions.
Improves customer satisfaction
Another key KPI to measure when trying to stay competitive in the service industry is adhering to your SLAs (Service Level Agreements).
With less time spent on the road, thanks to dynamic map-based scheduling, engineers are empowered to complete more jobs, delighting even more of your customers daily.
Repeat clients, referrals and glowing reviews will increase your efficiency by encouraging even more streamlined systems and processes for a rapidly growing business.
Simplifies parts management
A common headache in the sector is engineers being unable to achieve a first-time fix because they didn’t have the relevant parts in their van. Another way that dynamic scheduling can improve your efficiency is with automated parts management.
Aeromark maximise your efficiency by automating stock management, giving you clear visibility on the inventory and value for each van or forward stock location at any given moment which also enables calculations of “work in progress” and manage “Just in time” parts ordering.
Read our blog post: Five ways to optimise your critical spare parts management
Provides end-to-end visibility
A huge issue, particularly within operations, is lack of visibility; especially when legacy or separate GPS systems are still in place. It can make you feel out of control and causes internal friction when things go wrong.
At Aeromark, we understand that visibility isn’t just a nice to have; it’s a must. Having access to detailed analytics will give you clarity on efficiency and performance, providing insight into what strategic operational moves need to be made.
For example, having full visibility on the duration of each journey and job, the productivity and efficiency of engineers can be frequently monitored.
Still unsure about optimising your scheduling?
Changing from manual to dynamic scheduling can be daunting. The cost of change can be high but the cost of not changing could be your reputation and customers.
Do it once and do it right, don’t pick systems that over promise and only deliver tactical benefits or you will be changing again within a few years.
If you have questions about scheduling, feel free to get into contact with a member of our team today. Alternatively, if seeing is believing, book a demo of our software instead.
