Field Service Optimization: Oxymoron Or Major Opportunity?

By, Michael R. Blumberg, COO, D.F. Blumberg Associates, Inc.

As field service evolves to become a major contributor to corporate strategic revenues and profitability, it is increasingly important to optimize service efficiency, productivity, quality, and effectiveness. However, many service managers believe this objective is impossible because service businesses are too complex or they don’t follow normal business rules. This paper, based on cross-sectional studies of more than 250 small, medium, and large service organizations operating nationally or globally, shows how service optimization is being achieved—in part, through technology improvements in the service delivery system and through new concepts in service strategy development. Approaches and techniques, based on technological advances in call handling and dispatch, artificial intelligence, call avoidance, diagnostic technology, workforce management and scheduling, service parts logistics support, and advanced PDA technology, are discussed. In all, these advances contribute immeasurably to the improvement of customer identification, problem resolution, service support processes, and assignment/dispatch, and they significantly improve productivity, efficiency, and bottom-line profitability. This article focuses primarily on two critical components of optimization: service personnel optimization and logistics optimization.

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