A common problem experienced by organisations with a large number of field assets, whether that be human or capital equipment, is that they lack complete visibility and control over these assets. This lack of control is amplified when systems are not optimised to manage this situation. When paper-based systems are in place, or digital systems don’t speak to one another, businesses experience loss of information or lags in information flow across the business.
As a result of this poor data flow, you don’t have a complete view of utilisation and resource allocation throughout your organisation, which presents a number of concerns that ultimately impact your bottom line, including:
- Field staff may be wasting time or arriving late to site: With no-one on site to hold them accountable for their actions, this loss of productivity can cause major delays in job progression, and you may not realise this is happening until it’s too late.
- Capital assets may remain idle on sites when they are required elsewhere, or you may find yourself unable to locate the right asset at the right time which delays job progress and can cause customer dissatisfaction.
- Scheduling is a time-consuming manual process: You have to compile information flows from different sites to understand where jobs are up to, where people are, and where assets are. If you have information that isn’t in real-time, then you may be under-utilising your field assets, or allocating resources inefficiently.
3 Essential Steps to Achieving Control over Field Assets
To regain control over your field assets, and drive improved asset utilisation, there are 3 essential steps that you should take:
Start planning. Review your current field force to identify which assets you should track, what you want to track, and how they should be tracked.
Update your systems. Implement digital systems that track real-time activity to ensure you always have a clear picture of your field assets.
Focus on reporting. Ensure you are completing reports quickly and frequently, and that the data you have is accurate and up-to-date. In doing so, you can better understand long-term trends that you may not have picked up on before.
Implementing these Steps Across your Field Assets
When actioned across your organisation these 3 steps should lead to higher assets utilisation, and efficient resource allocation, which ultimately results in improved customer satisfaction and revenue.
To reap the full benefits of this change, it’s essential that the implementation process is managed effectively across all stakeholders. That’s where we can help.
At Kontrol4 we have a full-service solution which includes customisable modules, and change management services to help you regain control over your field assets.