nach oben

2013 | Buch

Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Transforming Field and Service Operations

Methodologies for Successful Technology-Driven Business Transformation

herausgegeben von: Gilbert Owusu, Paul O’Brien, John McCall, Neil F. Doherty

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten

Über dieses Buch

The drive to realise operational efficiencies, improve customer service, develop new markets and accelerate the introduction of new products has substantially increased the complexity of field service operations. To maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of these operations, organisations have embarked on a wide range of transformation programmes that have sought to introduce automation through the use of workforce management technologies. Despite the potential business value that can be provided by such transformation programmes, too often, the automation technologies have not been fully utilised and their expected benefits have as such not been realised.

Scholars of organisation change argue that the success of any transformation programme is a function of how well the technical, political, structural and social aspects of a specific project have been managed. The objective of this edited book is to provide insights into how organisations might successfully transform their field service operations with the help of workforce management technologies. Accordingly, the book is organised into four sections: Section A “The Case for Transforming Service and Field Operations” explains the rationale as to why organisations should actively consider transforming their service and field operations, while Section B presents various “Methods, Models and Enabling Technologies for Transforming Service and Field Operations”. In Section C, a number of “Case Studies” illustrate how new technologies can be applied to field and service operations to deliver concrete business benefits. Lastly, Section D considers “Challenges, Outcomes and Future Directions”.

Overall, this book provides valuable insights into how to successfully transform field service operations with automated technologies. It draws on years of experience from different industries and from different perspectives on realising change. It is aimed at managers, technologists, change agents and scholars who are interested in field service operations in general and the use of advanced computing technologies in this area in particular.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

The Case for Transforming Service and Field Operations

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. IT Exploitation Through Business Transformation: Experiences and Implications

Abstract

In recent years it has been argued that as information technology has become a largely undifferentiated commodity, the scope for organisations to use it strategically, to gain and sustain a competitive advantage, has significantly diminished. In this chapter, we seek to assess the extent to which organisations will need to switch the focus of their attention from IT development to ongoing IT exploitation, if they wish to deliver real value from their commoditised IT solutions. In particular, we seek to explore the complex relationship between software projects, organisational change and benefits delivery, to try to understand why, if IT is now such a readily available commodity, it still results in such a wide variety of organisational impacts and outcomes. In so doing, this chapter will seek to articulate and critique the strategies and approaches that organisations will need to adopt if they are to be more successful in managing the business change and delivering the business benefits that stem from the adoption of commoditised IT.

Neil F. Doherty, Crispin R. Coombs

Chapter 2. Transforming Field and Service Operations with Automation

Abstract

Severe cost pressures, attractive new markets and accelerating new product introductions have substantially increased the complexity of transforming service and field operations. Automating service and field operations offer a tremendous opportunity for achieving improvements in efficiency, cost savings and service delivery. At the heart of automating service and field operations is the efficient management of a company’s resources. However, automating the decision-making process of addressing the imbalance between the supply and demand sides of the service provisioning and delivery has been a challenge for field and service operators. In this chapter, we outline a framework for addressing the challenge of transforming service and field organisations with IT. In particular, the framework helps to identify the type of transformation required, particularly the types of IT capabilities appropriate for deployment in an organisation. The framework has been used in BT, and we provide a case study of how we used it in implementing a service production management capability for managing BT’s field force.

Gilbert Owusu, Paul O’Brien

Methods, Models and Enabling Technologies for Transforming Service and Field Operations

Frontmatter

Chapter 3. Designing Effective Operations: Balancing Multiple Business Objectives Using Simulation Models

Abstract

All businesses need to balance a number of different and often competing imperatives. For a business to be sustainable it must balance two prime objectives: to maintain cash flow today for survival and at the same time to evolve, to ensure its future. Supporting these prime objectives are second-order objectives such as the ability to maintain business stability under various conditions. An example is the maintenance of customer service levels in the event of unexpected surges in demand or problems in supply. Managing these parallel demands is very complex, involving decision-making in different areas of the organisation, the results of which interact with each other on a range of timescales. New modelling techniques give us the ability to simulate the business behaviours which result from these interactions. They provide important evidence-based insights which improve decision-making in complex organisations.

Stephen A. Cassidy, David C. Wynn

Chapter 4. System Dynamics Models of Field Force Operations

Abstract

This chapter discusses an approach to modelling service operations appropriate to long-term strategic planning which incorporates the modelling of service performance as an integral feature of the methodology. The approach is based on the system dynamics technique, which emphasises dynamic complexity over detail complexity. We present the rationale behind the approach, with a key principle being that the combined effect of decisions, e.g. on resource deployment, tends to equalise tension across the organisation with ‘tension’ represented by equations relating performance, targets and prioritisations. We use a simple implementation of this approach to demonstrate the types of scenarios that we have explored with clients, followed by a description of how we have used a more comprehensive version, validated against historical data, to model the field operations of a major BT line of business, including a discussion of some of the challenges faced.

Kjeld Jensen, Michael Lyons, Nicola Buckhurst

Chapter 5. Understanding the Risks of Forecasting

Abstract

A fundamental element of the successful deployment of operational teams is the ability to forecast future demand accurately. There is a raft of forecasting methods available to the forecaster ranging from the simple to the highly sophisticated, with many software packages able to identify the most appropriate method. One of the skills of the forecaster is the ability to strike a balance between finding a model that is good enough and one that overfits the data, especially if there is a demand from the business to seek forecasts with greater accuracy. However, the pursuit of better forecasts can sometimes be a fruitless exercise and Is it important for any forecaster to ask two questions: firstly, Is it of benefit to improve accuracy, and secondly, given the data available, can better forecasts be produced? The first question is a matter of identifying the effort required to produce better forecasts, be that through identifying a better model or collecting additional data to improve the existing model, and weighing it against the improvements in accuracy. The second question is a matter of understanding the limitations of the current forecasting model and, as importantly, the data used to produce the forecasts. If, for instance, the data contains a high level of randomness, even the most sophisticated model will be unable to produce highly accurate forecasts. This chapter describes an approach based on forecast errors to derive an approximation of the signal-to-noise ratio that can be used to understand the limitations of a given forecasting method on a given set of data and therefore provides the forecaster with the knowledge of whether there is any likely benefit from seeking further improvements. If the forecaster accepts the current model, the signal-to-noise ratio can provide an understanding of the risks associated with that model.

Jonathan Malpass

Chapter 6. Modern Analytics in Field and Service Operations

Abstract

Businesses need to run their processes for field and service operations effectively and efficiently, providing good service at reasonable costs. Due to the changing nature of businesses including their environment and due to their intrinsic complexity, processes may require adaptation on a regular basis. Modern analytics can help improve processes and their execution by extracting the real process from workflow data (process mining), pointing to problems like bottlenecks and loops, by detecting emerging or changing patterns in demand and in the execution of processes (change pattern mining). We will present a variety of the tools and techniques we have designed covering the above and give examples for their successful application.

Martin Spott, Detlef Nauck, Paul Taylor

Chapter 7. Enhancing Field Service Operations via Fuzzy Automation of Tactical Supply Plan

Abstract

Tactical supply planning (TSP) is an integral part of the end-to-end field resource planning process. It takes as input, constrained demand from the strategic plan at monthly (or quarterly) level, decomposes it to daily or weekly level and plans the capacity accordingly to meet the expected demand. The plan is then executed and sent to a work allocation system for on-the-day scheduling of individuals tasks to resources. A tactical supply plan ensures that there are enough resources available in the field on any given day. It highlights underutilised resources and offers recommendations on how best to deploy surplus resources. As such, TSP focuses on improving customer satisfaction by minimising operational cost and maximising right-first-time (RFT) objectives.

In this chapter, we describe opportunities and challenges in automating tactical supply planning and present a fuzzy approach to address the challenges. The motivation is to minimise the effort required for producing a resource plan. More importantly, our objective is to leverage computation intelligence to produce optimised supply plan in order to increase RFT and the customer satisfaction.

Sid Shakya, Summer Kassem, Ahmed Mohamed, Hani Hagras, Gilbert Owusu

Case Studies

Frontmatter

Chapter 8. The Role of Search for Field Force Knowledge Management

Abstract

Search has become a ubiquitous, everyday activity, but finding the right information at the right time in an electronic document collection can still be a very challenging process. Significant time is being spent on identifying suitable search terms, exploring matching documents, rephrasing the search request and assessing whether a document contains the information sought. Once another user is faced with a similar information need, the whole process starts again. There is significant potential in cutting down on this activity by taking a user straight to the required information. As well as delivering technical information and vital regulatory information, a knowledge management solution is concerned with capturing valuable insight and experience in order to share it amongst workers. A search engine has been developed and deployed to technical support staff and we were able to assess its impact on mobile workers. The architecture is based on open-source software to satisfy the basic search functionality, such as indexing, search result ranking, faceting and spell checking. The search engine indexes a number of knowledge repositories relevant to the field engineers. On top of that we have developed an adaptive query suggestion mechanism called Sunny Aberdeen. Query suggestions provide an interactive feature that can guide the user through the search process by providing alternative terminology or suggesting ‘best matches’. In our search engine, the query suggestions are generated and adapted over time using state-of-the-art machine learning approaches, which exploit past user interactions with the search engine to derive query suggestions. Apart from continuously updating the suggestions, this framework is also capable of reflecting current search trends as well as forgetting relations that are no longer relevant. Query log analysis of the system running in a real-life context indicates that the system was able to cut down the number of repeat faults and speeds up the decision process for sending out staff to certain jobs.

Dyaa Albakour, Géry Ducatel, Udo Kruschwitz

Chapter 9. Application of AI Methods to Practical GPON FTTH Network Design and Planning

Abstract

The optimal design of telecommunication network infrastructure demands consideration of many complex factors such as type, number and position of components and cable paths. The difficulty of producing a consistent and cost-effective solution increases with network size and complexity. A network planning optimisation tool developed at EBTIC (Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Centre) can generate different network topologies and evaluate them to arrive rapidly at an optimal or near-optimal solution. It has been trialled in Greenfield areas for FTTH (Fibre To The Home) deployment. This case study reviews the operation of EBTIC optimisation tool, how the design problem has been formulated and summarises the key steps in the practical application of the algorithms. In addition, the business benefits provided by the tool in the working environment are provided.

Kin Fai (Danny) Poon, Anis Ouali, Andrej Chu, Riaz Ahmad

Chapter 10. The Role of Service Quality in Transforming Operations

Abstract

The introduction of any tool requires changes in the users’ environment to use the tool. McAfee (Harv Bus Rev November: 141–149, 2006) highlights this point by stating that the challenges in IT projects are not just technical but managerial. Here, managerial refers to embedding the system within the organisation. Kotter says ‘in the final analysis, change sticks when “it becomes the way we do things here”, when it seeps into the bloodstream of the corporate body’ (Kotter, Harv Bus Rev January: 96–103, 2007). Clearly, the success of any IT transformation programme is in part a function of the quality of service being provided by the system. BT not only is a consumer of service and field automation technologies but also provides production management solutions to other industries. We have observed (both qualitatively and quantitatively) from our experiences of developing production management systems that the quality of the services being provided by production management systems is dependent on the perceptions of the users of the system. This correlates with the measures put in place for engagement between the development team and the end users during the life cycle of the development.

Gilbert Owusu, Paul O’Brien, Sid Shakya

Chapter 11. Field Force Management at eircom

Abstract

The case study outlined in this chapter focuses on eircom, Ireland’s largest provider of telecom services, i.e. fixed line phone, mobile, broadband and data. The majority of eircom’s technology business involves the delivery and repair of copper/fibre telephone services. Within that, eircom’s field force comprises the technicians who install and repair these services. The management of eircom’s field force has many challenges ranging from geography and skill to productivity and service level.

Simulation modelling was adopted as the most accurate approach to address these challenges. This chapter demonstrates how simulation was used to objectively understand the issues, design solutions and quantify eircom’s requirements. CIM Ireland built the models and assisted in the design of the solutions that resulted in a 16% improvement in ‘delivery on time’, combined with a 19% reduction in resources required. The accuracy level of the model’s performance was 97.5% when compared with actual performance.

Feargal Timon, Attracta Brennan

Chapter 12. Understanding Team Dynamics with Agent-Based Simulation

Abstract

Agent-based simulation is increasingly used in industry to model systems of interest allowing the evaluation of alternative scenarios. By this means, business managers can estimate the consequences of policy changes at low cost before implementing them in the business. However, in order to apply such models with confidence, it is necessary to validate them continuously against changing business patterns. Typically, models contain key parameters which significantly affect the overall behaviour of the system. The process of selecting such parameters is an inverse problem known as ‘tuning’ In this chapter, we describe the application of computational intelligence to tune the parameters of a workforce dynamics simulator. We show that the best algorithm achieves reduced tuning times as well as more accurate field workforce simulations. Since implementation, this algorithm has facilitated the use of simulation to assess the effect of changes in different business scenarios and transformation initiatives.

Thierry Mamer, John McCall, Siddhartha Shakya, Gilbert Owusu, Olivier Regnier-Coudert

Chapter 13. Effective Engagement of Field Service Teams

Abstract

Successfully engaging and motivating any work force is vital; how to accomplish such a challenge is the focus of this chapter. It is the shared view of the authors that attaining employee engagement requires a finely tuned mix of actions based upon understanding the workforce from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint. The qualitative view, based on social science research, reveals insights into peoples’ actions, their behaviours, attitudes and values. The quantitative view provides the essential knowledge and information to facilitate the employee’s job in hand as well as enable the workforce to reach their full potential. This chapter outlines nine components which emerged from this approach, components that any organisation needs to understand and action to influence employee engagement.

Tanya Alcock, Jonathan Malpass

Chapter 14. The Asset Replacement Problem State of the Art

Abstract

This book chapter outlines the different modelling approaches for realising sustainable operations of asset replacement and studying the impact of the economic life, the repair-cost limit and comprehensive cost minimisation models. In particular it analyses in detail the parallel replacement models and suggests a new model that addresses some of the issues not yet solved in this area. Finally a discussion about the limitations of the current models from a theoretical and applied perspective is proposed and identifies some of the challenges still faced by academics and practitioners working on this topic.

Amir H. Ansaripoor, Fernando S. Oliveira, Anne Liret

Challenges, Outcomes and Future Directions

Frontmatter

Chapter 15. Enabling Smart Logistics for Service Operations

Abstract

Efficient and on-time execution of field tasks has been found to rely heavily on internal availability of inventories. However, the lack of flexibility in the way information flows along the logistics chain has led to poor inventory replenishment lead times. This results in delayed execution of field tasks and has a negative impact on customer experience. This chapter articulates the concept of communication flexibility, in the form of dimensions, by which operations managers may judge the ability of the logistics chain to configure and reconfigure information linkages in response to a changing environment. Until now the term ‘communication flexibility’ has been loosely used in the literature. This research establishes a more analytical definition that forms the foundation for more comprehensive empirical quantitative and qualitative research in the field of flexible operations. The research method is a combination of conceptual and literature review based research. The chapter proposes a conceptual model of intra-organisational communication flexibility which is composed of three levels, namely, transactional, operational and strategic. Each level consists of a number of dimensions and sub-dimensions that together define communication flexibility in logistics operations. Current research in the deployment of ICT in inventory projects is then considered in depth in order to preliminarily verify and validate the proposed model. This chapter provides an overview of current best practice and technological use in inventory management that emphasises the importance of visibility in the management of inventory achieved through ICT deployment.

Yingli Wang, Mohamed Naim, Leighton Evans

Chapter 16. Measuring and Managing the Benefits from IT Projects: A Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

There is growing agreement that organisations must explicitly plan for and proactively manage the realisation of benefits, if a new technology is to deliver real value to its host organisation. In particular, benefits need to be leveraged through carefully planned and co-ordinated programmes of organisational change and ongoing organisational adaptation. Inevitably these insights have encouraged academics, consultants and practitioners to develop tools and techniques that explicitly support the benefits realisation process. Unfortunately, even when organisations have adopted such prescriptions, tools or panaceas, the outcome from software projects still often disappoints users and managers alike. Based upon a thorough review of the existing literature, we begin by critically evaluating the benefits management literature and argue that before organisations can meaningfully manage benefits, they must be able to effectively measure benefits. We then critique the existing benefits measurement literature to assess whether the current measurement tools are sufficiently robust and effective, to facilitate benefits management approaches. The chapter concludes by proposing an agenda that identifies the many areas in which future research projects could be fruitfully conducted.

Crispin R. Coombs, Neil F. Doherty, Irina Neaga

Backmatter

Titel: Transforming Field and Service Operations
herausgegeben von: Gilbert Owusu
Paul O’Brien
John McCall
Neil F. Doherty
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-642-44970-3
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-44969-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-44970-3