Magazine Article | September 21, 2006

Field Service Automation Enables $1.3 Million Payback

Source: Field Technologies Magazine
Integrated Solutions, October 2006

Raymond Handling Concepts sells material handling systems and services, including lift truck maintenance. It employs 86 field technicians who are responsible for inputting data throughout daily work. The technicians record actions such as scheduled work orders, preventative maintenance orders, parts-used tracking, labor hours, rental fleet pickup, delivery tracking, and van replenishment. Raymond Handling’s techs used to complete paper forms for each job. This resulted in more than 110,000 paper-based scheduled work orders each year that had to be manually entered into Raymond Handling’s back end system by a full-time staff of five people. Because of this laborious process, it took at least two weeks to generate customer invoices, which severely impacted the company’s cash flow.

To remedy these problems, Raymond  Handling evaluated mobile application solutions. During the evaluation process, Raymond Handling realized that many solutions were not easy to configure without lengthy programming. It was critical for Raymond Handling to find a solution that would allow non-IT business managers to quickly make changes to their deployed applications when needed. Raymond Handling eventually purchased MobileFrame Business Suite Software. “The other solutions we considered required us to call the vendor every time we wanted a change,” says Steve Raymond, CEO of Raymond Handling. “We were told that this process would take an average of three months and cost us between $2,500 and $7,000 for each call. MobileFrame’s solution allows us to make changes in just minutes and at no charge to us.”


WIRELESS SOFTWARE PLATFORM ENABLES CUSTOM APP CREATION

In addition to modifying current applications on the fly, one of the key benefits of MobileFrame’s software is its ability to create entirely new mobile applications quickly with no custom programming required. The software runs on Intermec handheld devices and enables field techs to capture photographs, bar code scans, voice notes, digital sketches, and electronic signatures, as well as print customer receipts while in the field.

With the solution in place, Raymond Handling has realized the following benefits:

  • Reduced accounts receivable lag time

  • Increased data accuracy by eliminating duplicate data entry

  • Reduced clerical data entry costs

  • Increased workforce productivity by automating work assignments


Raymond Handling performed a payback analysis of these benefits and calculated the company saved more than $1.3 million the first year the project was deployed.