Field Service Management : the future of technicians

Managing the interventions of mobile teams of technicians is a critical step in customer satisfaction. If it turned out to be complicated until today (emergency management, composition of teams, management of material resources), there are now new solutions to help operational managers in planning routes so that they are optimized. and that they take place at a lower cost.

What is Field Service Management ?

Field Service Management is the management of interventions by field technicians. This consists of the optimization of installation, maintenance, repair, inspection and appraisal operations carried out by mobile teams of technicians.

Use software that integrates intervention management

Using Field Service Management software to optimize route planning offers many advantages :

• Reduction in the number of interventions,
• Reduction of intervention costs,
• Increase in the productivity of technicians and experts,
• Improving the quality of service and its efficiency,
• Raising the level of customer satisfaction.

FSM software allows you to manage all the schedules and routes of your teams of technicians. You have an overview of the interventions to be performed, which allows you to better manage the workload of your teams and their sizing. You can thus plan their interventions in a more intelligent (proximity, skills of technicians, level of urgency of the intervention, etc.) and balanced.

Your technicians thus obtain a dematerialized roadmap which is updated in real time in the event of changes, thanks to a complete mobile solution. Operational managers can monitor technicians' activity in real time and in particular geolocate them, which can prove to be a precious help in assigning an emergency to the closest team to have as little impact as possible on tours already in progress. Classes. Interventions are faster, travel costs reduced, which saves time, money and productivity for you and your technicians.

The use of IoT

Emergency management in Field Service Management turns out to be a real headache. Emergencies totally disrupt the organization of technicians' tours because they occur when they are already in the field, so they have to change their route and find themselves faced with too many interventions to manage in the field.
IoT (Internet of Things) technology allows connected objects to communicate with each other. As part of the WSF, the IoT sets up regular communication of facilities and equipment with technicians. It is thus possible to predict faults and breakdowns by monitoring the evolution of the condition of the devices. This monitoring of devices helps to avoid emergencies and to be alerted more quickly in the event of a fault. The IoT therefore allows a better analysis of risks but also a better assessment of the degree of urgency, in order to be able to better distribute them among technicians. This model of monitoring failures and failures is also found more and more in private installations. By combining intelligent equipment and automatic analysis tools with machine learning, it is possible to completely automate the planning of interventions.

This continuous analysis makes it possible to distribute the number of interventions over the year, but also to mobilize a technician only for an intervention that requires his expertise.

Use visio and augmented reality as diagnostic tools

To gain ever more time and efficiency, it is possible to combine the use of augmented reality and video in order to carry out a pre-diagnosis in the event of a failure.

The use of video by the customer to describe his problem is a factor in simplifying the handling of the problem by the technician. He can see live what the faulty parts of the device are, which is faster and more efficient than a simple oral explanation from a customer who does not always have the correct technical vocabulary.

Thanks to computer vision and machine learning, the technician is able to perform a remote diagnosis. He can then quickly identify the faulty point thanks to augmented reality capable of detecting a fault in a piece of equipment, but can also guide the customer in carrying out simple maintenance actions that do not require his presence.

Using video as well as augmented reality to perform a pre-diagnosis in the event of a technical failure increases the resolution rate from the technician's first visit, a major criterion for customer satisfaction. In some cases, the simple indications given by the technician during the video call resolve the problem. Otherwise, the technician is already aware of the problem and has been able to identify the faulty part of the device, his first visit will therefore no longer be a diagnostic visit, after which he will have to come back a second time to carry out the repair. He is already aware of the problem and thus knows the parts to take to carry out the repair on the first visit.

There are many benefits to using software to help you plan your technicians' routes, including saving you time and money.

You can thus reduce the number of low value-added interventions: your technicians now only intervene if their expertise is required. You also optimize their trips, to optimize their working time, nearly half of which is spent on the road, in order to allow them to carry out more interventions.