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Published on: September 2005
Type of content: WHITE PAPER
Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) (112 kb)
Length: 13 pages
Price: FREE

Overview:
One technician calls in sick. Another technician runs late on a job. Still another discovers they must pick up a spare from the depot because an additional problem was identified. One of your technicians is stuck in traffic and is going to miss a planned call. At the same time, two high priority calls come in that require service within the next four hours or will result in penalties. How should the schedule be adjusted to compensate for all of these conditions? This is just an average day for many dispatchers, and they usually have some interesting ways to solve the problem. Not by following a simple set of rules, typically, but the ability to make trade-offs between different options. The problem is that as the options grow more complex and there are more factors to consider, a dispatcher can only handle so much. Subdividing technicians and dispatchers to territories can help, but that simplification does not allow for optimization across the business. How can the trade-offs between schedule attainment and productivity be managed?

Service companies have to deal with the realities of not having enough resources, having too much work to do, coping with schedules that are hard to predict, and trying to meet continuously increasing customer expectations for service. The service environment is naturally a very chaotic environment, which has led to inefficiencies in the field as well as in the office. Improved management of service processes can help increase customer satisfaction and profitability. In addition, applying scheduling technology and proven optimization practices is providing many companies a solution to the complexity problem. Scheduling optimization technology, formerly reserved for large companies or mission-critical issues, is now coming into the reach of smaller companies.

Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) solutions are adopting this proven technology and infusing it with service management capabilities. Given increased customer demand, tighter Service Level Agreements (SLA), more complex customer-driven contract options, reduced profit margins and more complex equipment that requires the need to deploy a more diverse range of technician skills--the time is right to apply dynamic scheduling tools to solve the growing service scheduling and dispatching challenge as part of an overall Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) strategy.

SLM is an approach for service-oriented companies to better serve their customers and enhance profitability. Adopting Service Lifecycle Management techniques alone is a compelling proposition--providing increased revenue, lower costs and improved customer satisfaction. SLM provides control, synchronization, integration of people and processes for service. SLM can't afford to be static, however, and further benefits are achievable from incorporating dynamic scheduling techniques.

This paper explores how the use of scheduling technology can help companies attain and extend the benefits of SLM by providing service-aware dispatching tools that can greatly improve the efficiency of technicians and dispatchers alike--simultaneously improving service levels and reducing cost.