Wireless World in Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning
Scenario
Create a replacement for an old business model where wild fluctuations during the summer months, are followed by a rapid downturn during the Fall season, then a mild upswing in the late winter . Management would like to replace the saw-tooth earnings with a more predictable income profile.
Constraints?
As staffing levels peak during the summer months, so does employee expenses, as members of the work crew perform warranty work, pre-paid preventative maintenance and emergency repairs. The challenge is how to spread the non-emergency tasks into the slow Fall period and still support the existing customer base.
What to do?
Among the many choices are: (1) Do nothing. This is how the industry operates, (2) hire more staff during the peak season and lay off more staff during the Fall lull, (3) find a solution that would track peak activities more closely, identify and schedule PM tasks in a more systematic way and reduce the dramatic inventory expenses that are incurred in the summer.
The fast-track solution is TaskCaddy, the Mobile Deployment Management System that has the following features…
Ability to provide inventory accounting for material used in the field.
Ability to account for recycled inventory used in the field and return to stock or reclaim for repairs.
Ability to return stock to inventory.
Ability to automatically transfer data from the field to the server without human intervention.
Ability to create purchase requisitions.
Ability to issue inventory kits to the job.
Ability to match project requirements against the skills of the personnel database.
Ability to compute actual costs and compare with planned time.
Ability to identify subcontracts and pay based on time spent on the task.
And much more...
How can TaskCaddy assist you?
| | Description of Activity/Event | TaskCaddy Function |
| | You build a preventative maintenance model of tasks for all common events and activities | Task Master Data Base |
| | You know what parts inventory is required for each task | Inventory Required by Task |
| | Based on the Maintenance model, you already know how long certain activities will take and when they are due | Project Standards |
| | Based on the actual from the previous visit you are able to update your setup standards to reflect today’s costs | Project Costs |
| | You already know the best FT(Field Technician) to assign to certain tasks | Previous Project Performance |
| | You also know who is your customer representative at each location | Customer Location Contact Person |
| | You also know of other ongoing projects, the length of time required; the FTs assigned and the projected costs | Current Project by Location |
| | You could reassign the FTs to other projects, dynamically | FT Assignment |
| | | |
Using TaskCaddy, the Project Manager (PM)...
- Selects Project Bill of Task from previous visit
- Copies previous project into New
- Reviews inventory status
- Reserve inventory
- Issues inventory
- Assigns scheduled start dates and schedule end dates
- Selects FT for project
TaskCaddy outcomes?
- New project is created
- Automatically sends project tasks to selected FTs' mobile PDAs
- Inventory is pulled and staged
- Setup and task steps instruction are already predefined in the device
- You receive instant feedback on problems
- Instant feedback on task completion and inventory usage via the PDA
Benefits of using TaskCaddy , the Work-Smarter solution…
· Frees up Management to focus on planning
· Provides metrics for activity based costing
· Makes projects more predictable
· Optimizes utilization of personnel during project execution
· Seamlessly transacts inventory management activities
· Gives operational visibility of each location, real time
· Compare activities between selected job sites
· Identify under utilized workers immediately
