People and Parts for Service Management
By Mark Stair

There are many different software products in the market that handle service dispatch and many other products that handle inventory management. However, an efficient service management company needs to efficiently manage both people AND parts.
The people are the field technicians doing the work. The parts is the inventory management and getting the right parts prepared, ready and to the job site.

If you get the right people to the job site but with the wrong parts or no parts, you have totally wasted a service call, you have wasted the technician time which could be a lost revenue opportunity, and you have wasted the customer’s time coordinating the service order. Everybody loses.

If you have the right parts, but the wrong people, you get the same wasted effort and time.

So, how do you make sure that you get the right people and the right parts to the job site? In order to accomplish this non-trivial fete, you need the following:
1) First of all you need to know information of what the customer currently has installed at their job sites. Most equipment service repair or new installation will require integration with other existing equipment at the customer site. For example, if you are installing a new phone, does the customer have an open port or line to install the phone or will it require installing another piece of equipment?
2) Secondly, you need to know the skills and availability of the technician that matches with the customer requested needs. This also includes utilizing subcontractors. You may find that it’s more practical or better to deploy a subcontractor rather than one of your techs because the job is in another state or beyond your techs capabilities or availability.
3) Third, you need to make sure you know the status of the parts. Are they in stock, do they need to be ordered, do they need to be transferred from another location or warehouse, or do you need to pull from another technician’s truck?

So, when thinking about your business and your software needs, make sure you are considering both people and parts. Will your system seamlessly handle both? Of course, SME and SMP from High 5 Software handle all these aspects great or I wouldn’t be talking about it. Look to SME for excellent customer equipment tracking, technician scheduling, inventory management, and subcontractor management.