Customer Feedback: Locate Part on FSA app

[Anita_Dsouza]

Hello Everyone - I am looking for Customers who have rollout out Field Inventory feature in FSA tablet that was introduced back in WIN18. This feature allows technicians to locate a part within a set radius and send a part request message to other technicians or warehouse as well as transfer parts to other technicians improving First-Time-Fix rate and reducing Service Cost. You can learn more about this feature here.

We are in process of adding this feature to our new Go app and I would like to get some feedback on this.

[Nicole_Guzzo]

Thanks, Anita! It's always great to get customer feedback on these kinds of things.

I'm @ mentioning some of our top users - have any of you used the field inventory feature, or know another customer who has?

@richard_lewis @mmajerus6 @brenoburkinshaw @acooper @mark_taylor @russjaco @hans_vanmil @cpalmer 

[hans_vanmil]

Sorry, but we are not using the Locate Parts in the FSA but this triggers me if this can also fit in our processes and if this can be valuable for our Techs. For now there is no need for this. Success

[Anita_Dsouza]

Hi @hans_vanmil - Thanks for your comments. I am curious to learn how to your technician procure parts in the field, when they are at a Customer site and need a part to fix the issue/ attain FTF. 

1. Do they typically call the back-office to help them identify the location from where they can pick-up parts? OR
2. Do they call other technicians in their service team or region to check for available parts? OR
3. Do they drive to the warehouse and pick-up the parts? OR
4. Do they create follow-up Work Order and leave the site?

How is this scenario handled in your organization across different regions? Please let me know.

Thanks,

Anita

[hans_vanmil]

Hi Anita, Here some answers on your questions: First I have to tell you we have Global Service Departments All over the World and they have also some Local differences the way they can work. 1. Do they typically call the back-office to help them identify the location from where they can pick-up parts? Answer: Only when there is a risk or high priority. In some cases this can be but does not happen a lot. The Van stocks of the Techs are quite good. 2. Do they call other technicians in their service team or region to check for available parts? Answer: In some cases this can be but does not happen actually. The Van stocks of the Techs are quite good. 3. Do they drive to the warehouse and pick-up the parts? This is always possible if there is some stock in the Local Warehouse but in the world of logistics we have a Central distribution center which is in another country. 4. Do they create follow-up Work Order and leave the site? In this cases we work with the Parts Request functionality and Process. The logistic train will start to send out the needed parts and in most cases we will have a Revisit work-order This fyi and greetings Hans van Mil

[Nicole_Guzzo]

Also wanted to mention some of our great customer account managers!

 @lisa_mercer, @kevinpayne, @aaron_henley @michele_mckenna - do you know if any of your customers have used the field inventory feature, and have feedback they could share? 

[richard_lewis]

Hi @Anita_Dsouza , we have a custom solution for this today so are certainly interested to learn more about your plans to add it to the ServiceMax GO App. We are working on rolling out the iPhone version, will that have this added? 

I watched the video from Dean you recommended but couldn't see any mention of how this solution is delivered. Where is the Latitude and Longitude that this solution uses stored? User GPS Logs? Technician Record? User Record? Location Record?

Regards, Richard

@terry_cavender @dave_salter @martin_green 

[Anita_Dsouza]

Thanks for your feedback, @richard_lewis ! We will continue to work on ensuring such details are captured.  @dean_ichikawa - FYI

For FSA app, this data comes from the User GPS Logs and it is stored on the Technician record as below:

Currently this feature is not available on ServiceMax Go app, hence we are collecting feedback as we are in process of building this out for the Go app.

@joseph_june - FYI.

Also, could you please share some additional details around how technicians communicate with each other in the field once they have identified the resource(s) to borrow the part from?

[richard_lewis]

Hi @Anita_Dsouza , our Technicians call each other about parts and then if they have taken parts from another technician they consume the part differently to indicate this by specifying the other technicians location.

Regarding where the information is stored I think you are saying that you have the setting to update the Technician location with the last GPS co-ordinates captured set to TRUE. What this does is take the values on the most recently created 'User GPS Logs' record and populate the lat and long fields on the Technician record. You then with your solution pull the lat and long from the Technician record. Is this correct or is it stored on the Product Stock records themselves?

Regards, Richard

[lisa_mercer]

I've reached out to some customers via email