Leading maintenance repair and operation (M.R.O.) organizations are leveraging a range of best practices for optimal asset performance. Such methods encompass maintenance best practices that drive efficiencies and equipment life cycles, as well as cost-cutting ideas from allied industries like field services.

Efficiently run field service teams have, for years, used and benefited from automated scheduling applications that deliver the right service tech to the right location at the lowest cost. They have cut wasteful travel and duplicate visit expenses to complete more service calls that better serve their customers and extend asset life.

Conversely, asset managers are well aware that more work order information and background, with more details, in the hands of technicians at the point-of-performance is a key productivity driver that means improved equipment performance. Data captures reported electronically also are driving better decision-making by management, in addition to fueling accurate and timely compliance reporting.

Schedule smarter/work smarter
Asset managers can cut costs and improve productivity by borrowing a page from their brethren in the field service world and exploring automated scheduling tool options. Smarter scheduling will cut unnecessary foot traffic, improve first time fix rates and cut costly overtime.

Field service teams can improve performance and customer satisfaction by examining the best practices of the asset managers and put in-place applications that deliver more data to their techs where they need it most, at the job site.

Working smarter with more data improves performance, cuts replacement part outages and costly return trips. Documenting the trends A study by the AberdeenGroup research analysts entitled “The Convergence of Field Service and Asset Maintenance” illustrates the best practices leading organizations have embraced.

“Ensuring that the proper information is available at the time and point of service, through deployment of mobile technology, is a key strategy Best in Class organizations are using to address service improvements,” wrote co-authors Micky Long, research director, Strategic Service management, and Sumair Dutta, research analyst, Strategic Service Management. “Nearly 92 percent of Best in Class firms surveyed either have in place or plan to implement systems that will provide technician access to job orders, status, schematics and parts availability via mobile devices.”

The report also highlights the importance of such factors as systematic performance measurement, proactive asset monitoring, RFID technology and implementing automatic scheduling processes to achieve “Best in Class” performance.

Demonstrating the value
At Syclo, we are seeing organizations using a combination of mobile technology to deliver data to their techs and sophisticated scheduling products to realize sustained operating savings and improved asset performance. This new convergence is helping organizations move toward best practices that:

• Replace time spent on paperwork with wrench time.
• Automate work schedules and better adjust and assign work-in-progress as conditions and needs change.
• Use the added completed tasks to move from predominantly reactive to majority preventive work and even reliability-based maintenance operations.
• Improve tech productivity by arming them with job plans, asset repair history, replacement part availability and more.

Recognizing the value of these best practices— and embracing them—is allowing more and more proactive organizations to optimize their field service and asset management capabilities. In the process, they are improving their bottom lines.