The Mobile Edge

A typical service repairman spends most of his/her time in the field, driving from assignment to assignment. And with each assignment comes the inevitable mountain of paperwork that must get back to headquarters for invoicing, parts processing, labor, etc. That paperwork adds up quickly, as does the time the repairman has to spend completing it at the expense of servicing additional customers.

Charlie Haycraft, president of Service Automation, a Houston-based solution provider, drives the cost-point home: If a company has 10 repairmen or technicians who can fit in at least one more customer call each day, that could add up to an additional $600,000 per year in revenue, he estimates.

That's why many service-industry companies, with their fleets of trucks and repairmen, are realizing the importance of mobile applications, wireless technology and the associated cost savings and efficiencies. Solution providers are heeding their call.

For example, Service Automation has found its niche doing what its name suggests--automating a corner of the service industry, providing IT solutions for heating, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, security and telecommunications businesses. Service Automation's latest offering builds on its core service-management solution, SAWIN Professional, making it mobile for field use. The SAWIN Field Automation System is the mobile-application layer, which includes dispatch, work-order download, parts-and-service pricing, credit-card processing and customer-signature acceptance via handheld devices.

The mobile solution was actually inspired by one of Service Automation's customers--Lexington, S.C.-based Excel Refrigeration. The small business has relied on Service Automation for more than six years since implementing SAWIN Professional for such functions including inventory, job costing, accounts receivable, payroll and order entry.

"They wanted to take it to the next level and put handhelds in their technicians' hands," Haycraft says. "But the most important thing for Excel Refrigeration was they wanted to be as paperless as they could be, and this was a big step in that direction."

Mobility In Action

Service Automation created the mobile solution using Sybase PocketBuilder, a rapid-application development tool for building mobile and wireless applications, in combination with the Sybase SQL Anywhere Studio UltraLite mobile database for handhelds.

To make sure Service Automation's mobile offering was up to snuff, Haycraft spent two days riding in Excel Refrigeration's service trucks, following its technicians around to find out what they liked about the technology and how it could be improved. Excel Refrigeration was happy to oblige, and the new mobility layer of SAWIN Professional was well on its way.

"We started with a test of two units, which were manned in the field for about eight months. Then this past spring, it was rolled out across the company," Haycraft says. That adds up to 11 Tripod Data Systems (TDS) handhelds at Excel Refrigeration and another 30 handhelds at its sister company.

When the project was tested, Excel Refrigeration had the opportunity to suggest new features and modifications for the mobile solution.

"They wanted the ability to book calls in the field," Haycraft explains. "They have technicians who work weekends when no one is in the office, so they needed the ability to book a call, say, coming into their pager and into the system using the handheld."

But Excel Refrigeration technicians had yet another request as testing came to a close: They wanted to be able to print in the field. So Service Automation supplied them with portable printers.

"Now technicians can download a work order into their pocket PC and complete that work order," Haycraft says.

More specifically, technicians can fill in details of a work order, including dispatch time, where they were dispatched, when they arrived and started the work, when they finished the work, how much labor to charge and more. Technicians can also enter the parts they used and then print out an invoice for the customer on-site.

In practice, Excel Refrigeration's technicians use the handhelds to transmit such information as cost estimates, tracking time, parts used and information on job sites, which is then aggregated and used in accounting, payroll and inventory applications.

The SMB Call

In general, Service Automation works with SMBs, which means its customers typically don't have a robust IT department, or one at all. In the case of Excel Refrigeration, its office manager is responsible for making some of the IT decisions.

"We work very closely with our small-business customers because they don't have the IT support internally," Haycraft says. "We're their first call sometimes, even if their computer isn't working. They'll call us, and generally we can help them get it taken care of."

Excel Refrigeration was previously using a mobile system called Coastal, but decided it needed to upgrade because "we put a lot of information into the system, but you couldn't get anything out of it," explains Mike Driscoll, service manager at Excel Refrigeration.

Customer need also drove Excel Refrigeration to seek out a better mobile solution. "Our No. 1 customer loves reports on a constant basis, and it was very hard for us to get that information to him," Driscoll adds.

With Service Automation's mobile application and handhelds in the field, Driscoll says his company has been able to reduce the amount of supporting office staff and has achieved the goal of being "to-the-minute up-to-date."

"When a technician completes a call, our computer system is ready to bill," he says. "The move to handhelds has helped our inventory tremendously. We have the correct part numbers in hand, instead of referencing a book, and we've seen a big improvement in inventory."

While Service Automation initially made a recommendation for handhelds, Driscoll says he was looking for something priced more competitively, so he did his own research.

"We found the device we wanted to use, showed it to Service Automation and gave them the specs," Driscoll adds. "They made it work for us. It wasn't a problem at all."

Excel Refrigeration also takes advantage of support and maintenance from Service Automation; Driscoll says that collaboration is key to the ongoing relationship.

"We work with the same guy every day, and the support he gives us is unbelievable," he says. "He's always asking what he can do to make the product better. We've asked [Service Automation] to make a lot of changes, and they've done it. It's really surprising they've given us as much attention as they have for as small as we are."

Next up for Excel Refrigeration? Driscoll says he's considering "experimenting with bar-coding for inventory."

Mobile Apps On The Rise

Businesses have been adopting mobile applications almost 18 percent faster than they had originally planned in 2005, according to a Forrester Research survey of North American and European network and telecom decision-makers. Security technologies will benefit from this trend, to boot, Forrester's research found; 67 percent of respondents plan to increase their security spending, citing security as a major concern when deploying new telecom technologies.

Forrester's research also reveals most of the businesses surveyed have deployed some form of mobile-data application, and estimate full deployment will reach 23 percent of their workforce. More than half of those have deployed e-mail, calendar and intranet applications. Close to 30 percent indicated interest in line-of-business applications, such as sales-force automation and customer-facing applications.