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.