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Changing a Light Bulb with Mobile Technologies
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Today I walked by a van in the grocery store parking lot and saw the doors on the van open. A man had a shopping cart next to the van and was slowly and methodically taking out boxes of light bulbs, entering their product codes onto a paper work order form and then placing them in the shopping cart.Presumably the young man was not a detailed oriented thief, but rather was preparing to take the light bulbs into the store and replace those that were burnt out. I watched as he looked for the product codes and wrote each one down. Someone is going to do something with that paper form. The likely scenario is that someone in administration will type the information on the paper form into the work order management software in the office when they can find nothing more fun to do.
I wonder how accurate the product codes are after the service technician writes them on the paper form, and the data entry person interprets the handwriting and then types them into the system?
There are numerous issues with this scenario:
- Inefficient use of a service technician's time - although it may not take a lot of skills to change a light bulb.
- Inaccuracies in the documentation of product codes and work order details caused by poor handwriting and inaccurate data entry.
- The lack of timely work order and inventory reporting, as the details are available only on paper until the data entry person gets to them.
Now this particular light bulb changing company may have been small, but think about the ones in big cities or Las Vegas even. Inefficiencies can add up to massive problems as they scale up.
With powerful, ruggedized handheld computers with integrated GPS, wireless connectivity and bar code scanners, inventories can be quickly scanned into the van (mobile inventory) and the mobile work order software can associate the parts and products with work order numbers and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected">synchronized</span> directly into the work order management system in the office for quick invoicing.
We finally have the answer to the age old question, "How many people (name your ethnic, geographical, religious or cultural stereotype) does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is LESS THAN IT DID BEFORE, if you mobilize your work order processes with handheld computers and use data collection technologies like bar code scanners to document your inventory usage.
***********************************************Author Kevin Benedict
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
Kevin Benedict Kevin Benedict is an independent consultant on Mobile and EDI/B2B Strategies, http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
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Do you have other examples of inefficient field services experiences? I would like to hear about them.
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- Kudos!
2009-11-16 03:14:02 Leo Mcdermott Business Card [Reply]
Dear Kevin,
I enjoy reading your blogs even though I am not exactly into the kind of work space. And let me commend you that you have the real knack to bring subject of your blogs to such a convincing conclusions.
Picking up on the age old question of "how many people for chaning the bulb" and linking it with mobile apps and works order managment to bring the real time values for a cusomter is really an eye opener.
But I would like to think that having rugged mobile infrastructure and investing into mobile computers along with handheld scanners would really make sense if it is extending the core services to another part of your work process life. And it should really add to the value of made investements in mobile infra and bring out added benefits. But possibly could not be a justified case to invest in it alone. Else it would turn out that "MUCH Less time and people for changing the bulb it used to but costs thousands time more than it used to"
Or are there any such justifiable situations?
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