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Crown introduces wireless hand-held devices to reduce service time

Following on the heels of an agile manufacturing implementation that has cut the cycle time for delivery of new vehicles, Crown equipment has addressed a reduction in time required to service its equipment via the introduction of wireless hand-held devices, linked to a purpose designed and built service management system.

The new service has already helped Crown to cut its average service call response time from an average of 2.5 hours to 2.2 hours. Crown believed that implementation of the wireless technology would result in significant savings and customer service improvements, and set up a pilot scheme in Sydney recently to quantify the improvements.

The pilot scheme was aimed at providing technicians with wirelessly networked hand-held devices, even though some of them had never used a computer. According to Crown, there was some apprehension among the 80-odd Sydney-based service technicians, who were chosen to test the new technology.

The new technology allows minimum administration time, which in turn means they have more time for maintenance. This then allows Crown to keep downtime to a minimum, which is effective.

Crown has over 300 service staff working nationally around the clock to ensure that customers are not kept waiting. Crown has 215 field vans, 30 permanent sites and 83 staff working in the workshop.

Staff training for the new equipment takes only two days, one day in class and one out in the field. The user guide for the iSMS was written in-house and forms an integral part of the training agenda for the staff. After four weeks, technicians have to fill in an evaluation questionnaire to ensure they understand the system. After six to eight weeks, each technician is then cycled through a further skill check process.

Crown’s rivals use an electronic dispatch system, but only Crown is using the new electronic service and planned maintenance inspection reporting using wireless technology.

During the testing process, the field technicians discovered that the first batch of Pocket PC’s had non-colour screens, which made it difficult to read the information, and they decided to change over to the colour PDAs.

The device was robust, but was large and somewhat cumbersome. Technical issues with the in-built modem caused intermittent communication problems. Crown switched to the I-Mate / XDA Pocket PC. It has a bright, colour display, is smaller and lighter, and has a faster processor that improves responsiveness.

The technical problems that led to the previous communication errors were fixed with the new model, and the new model is also a mobile phone, which is utilised to replace the radio network for voice communications.

Crown’s dedicated team of customer service representatives assess customers’ workloads, determine average truck running hours and nominate a service frequency for those trucks.

Planned maintenance and safety plan services are set up in the system, with the actual truck working hours taken off the customer site survey. The nominated hours are converted back to monthly or part thereof intervals.

The Service Management System’s (iSMS) database has the technicians’ grade qualification linked to the applicable range of trucks and service work is automatically allocated based on these criteria.

Previously, job details were sent over a radio system. However, with the new system technicians can receive details of the last four calls made to that customer, along with technical details of the faults. After the technician has finished the job, he simply completes a service report on the PDA and the customer signs for the work, no hassle, and no fuss.

The information is then transmitted back to Crown’s back-office systems, which automatically sends a service report and invoice to the customer.

Crown partnered with Intentia and Vodafone to ensure the system worked in the field. Intentia supplied a mobile service solution called Mobileware and Serviceware. Mobileware is a middleware application engine that enables mobile communications between Crown's back office Service Management System (SMS) and hand held devices in the field. Serviceware is the application that resides on the PDA

Vodafone supplied the hardware and communications network. Intentia and Vodafone demonstrated a willingness to work closely with the Crown Project Team to develop a working solution.

Crown’s operational team responsible for pilot project planning, education and implementation delivered a quality outcome on time and to plan. The team is now focusing on the future to deliver the same solution to the remaining branches in the service group.

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