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Servigistics Integrates Key Service Management Functions Sign Up to receive Daily News Alerts in your E-mail Inbox
Posted on Tuesday, October 09, 2007 5:07:00 PM |
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Aiming for an edge in the post-sale service market, Servigistics, a purveyor of service management software, announced a new version of its Service Workforce Management product that can predict conditions and align people, parts, and schedules in real time. By integrating every aspect of service management, the service department can become a strategic part of a business, the company said.The new version of the Servigistics product, announced today, is designed to solve the business problems inherent in the current service model, which, according to research firm Aberdeen Group, include disjointed processes, insufficient technology infrastructure, and insufficient performance metrics.The previous Servigistics solution included service parts management, service pricing management, and workforce management. The new model adds: service workforce planning (to forecast and plan staffing needs based on historical trends); service scheduler-dispatch (to optimize and re-optimize technician schedules and service orders); service mobility (to update schedules and track the field workforce throughout the day in real time); service parts locator (to locate and deliver parts); and a service command center (to proactively monitor work order progress to eliminate service risks).Built on a single data model, the product's Web-based architecture uses integrated optimization engines and processes. For example, the workforce planning module, which can forecast a head count for each specialty area, ties directly into the parts planning engine -- aligning technicians with the parts needed -- as well as the scheduling engine. It is a holistic approach to what can be a confusing environment. "There are many moving parts," said Mike Landry, CTO and founder of Servigistics, in an interview with Managing Automation. "If you diagnose a problem but don't have the part within a few hours, then you failed on ordering and deploying that part. Even though you have the right technicians and skill set, overall, you can't satisfy the customer because one of the pieces failed."The Servigistics software ensures that every decision in the service management process is dynamically updated in order to have the right part, with the right people, in the right place, at the right time, he said.To that end, the new command center is the centralized control unit, so to speak, where operational and executive dashboards provide a real-time view into work orders, contract types, inventory data, technician schedules and status, parts dispatch, and vehicle location via a GPS. The command center keeps tabs on the status of service jobs through color-coded symbols on maps. Green means it is on track; yellow means the job is in jeopardy; and red is an alert that the job is off-track. On the mobility side, field service technicians can use a Blackberry or Windows CE PDA to access or update job status. The software also integrates with Google Maps and Google Earth to provide predictive and real-time traffic conditions. The strategic service management market is starting to take off as manufacturers realize that service can be a profitable line of business, with the right tools."Those companies that closely integrate people and parts in their service processes are nearly four times more likely to support asset uptimes of greater than 95%," said Amit Jain, a research director at Aberdeen Group, in a statement. "In addition, companies that continue to ignore the core principles of strategic service management will in the next five to seven years not only forfeit significant growth opportunities, but may increasingly become irrelevant in the marketplace."
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