3 tips for scheduling and submitting work orders
Field team managers face many challenges in scheduling and dispatching work orders during the day, and many companies do not yet have the efficient systems to perform this type of management. This directly affects the productivity of external teams. Good service planning and scheduling ensures that your field team can perform the services according to the best route and perform the activities in the right order and desired quality.
We have separated 3 tips for those who want to schedule and dispatch work orders to the field team correctly:
1) Create your team’s field organization strategy
Scheduling field services involves determining how many field personnel will be needed, whether freelancers will be hired to perform the services, whether they will need them full time or only for specific services, etc. It may seem simple to make a service schedule, if no one were missing and employees were available 24 hours a day, but in reality it never happens without a good a staff roster system.
Therefore, creating a strategy for field team organization is essential.
Start by mapping your staff, sort them by route, skill, time available to work, the way you prefer and best fit your business. Set up a service scheduling prioritization process and then track the results of your first planning. Test for a period and evaluate whether changes are needed, such as team relocation, service route changes, etc. To complement this, create an internal policy that reinforces the importance of your team in advance of possible travel, absences, medical procedures, etc. This will help you have more predictability in your operation.
2) Automate work order planning and dispatch
The first step in process automation is to prepare the team for this transformation. Probably your team is used to the role and passing all activities to one system can create some difficulties. Present the idea to the team and show how it will be beneficial to both parties. In addition to making the process more organized and keeping all information stored in the cloud, the field team is confident that their work is being viewed by managers and managers are assured that services are being done properly. To automate this process it will be necessary to use a web / mobile interface system, where the team will use the mobile phone to record visits and the manager will see in real time what happens through the web system.
3) Define what you want to control in operation and choose software that has indicator system
It is not enough to follow up the services done in real time, and have a good planning and sending work orders. It is necessary to analyze the operation in a systemic way, that is, to follow performance indicators and to maintain a solid database to assist in the decision making. Therefore, before starting the automation process, keep in mind which indicators you want to monitor, so the system implementation process will be easier.
Organizing field operation can be a challenge without the right tools. So invest fearlessly, as productivity results prove the effectiveness of field team management software. In addition to choosing a system that meets all your business needs, you need to choose a vendor that has a highly prepared support team.
